THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT 

From  the  Library  of 

Henry  Goldman,  Ph.D. 

1886-1972 


TYLOR'S   WORKS. 


PRIMITIVE  CULTURE:  Researches  into  the 
Development  of  Mythology,  Philosophy,  Religion, 
Art,  and  Custom.  Third  American  from  the  Second 
London  edition  2  vols.  8vo.  $7.0x5. 

RESEARCHES  INTO  THE  EARLY  HISTORY 
of  Mankind,  and  the  Development  of  Civilization. 
8vo.  $3.50. 


RESEARCHES 


INTO     THE 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  MANKIND 


AND  THE 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  CIVILIZATION. 


BY 


EDWARD    B.    TYLOR, 

D.C.L.,   LL.D.,   F.R.S. 


BOSTON : 
ESTES    &    LAURIAT. 

1878. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  PA01 

INTRODUCTION" 1 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  .  .  .  '.          .          .          .14 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE — (continued) 34 

CHAPTER  IV. 

GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE         ...        55 

CHAPTER  Y. 

PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING  .          .          .     .        82 

CHAPTER  VI. 

IMAGES  AND  NAMES  106 

CHAPTER  VII. 

GROWTH     AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE  ....      150 


THE 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIII.  PAG. 

STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT        .          .          .          .192 


CHAPTER  IX. 

FIRE,  COOKING,  AND  VESSELS          ......      229 

CHAPTER  X. 

SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS    ......      275 

CHAPTER  XI. 

HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS   OF  OBSERVATION      .      306 

CHAPTER  XII. 

GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS  ....      333 

CHAPTER  XIIL 
CONCLUDING  REMARKS  ,  372 


EESEAECHES 


EARLY  HISTOEY  OF  MANKIND, 


CHAPTER    I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

IN  studying  the  phenomena  of  knowledge  and  art,  religion  and 
mythology,  law  and  custom,  and  the  rest  of  the  complex  whole 
which  we  call  Civilization,  it  is  not  enough  to  have  in  view  the 
more  advanced  races,  and  to  know  their  history  so  far  as  direct 
records  have  preserved  it  for  us.  The  explanation  of  the  state 
of  things  in  which  we  live  has  often  to  be  sought  in  the  con- 
dition of  rude  and  early  tribes  ;  and  without  a  knowledge  of  this 
to  guide  us,  we  may  miss  the  meaning  even  of  familiar  thoughts 
and  practices.  To  take  a  trivial  instance,  the  statement  is  true 
enough  as  it  stands,  that  the  women  of  modern  Europe  mutilate 
their  ears  to  hang  jewels  in  them,  but  the  reason  of  their  doing 
so  is  not  to  be  fully  found  in  the  circumstances  among  which  we 
are  living  now.  The  student  who  takes  a  wider  view  thinks  of 
the  rings  and  bones  and  feathers  thrust  through  the  cartilage  of 
the  nose ;  the  weights  that  pull  the  slit  ears  in  long  nooses  to 
the  shoulder ;  the  ivory  studs  let  in  at  the  corners  of  the  mouth ; 
the  wooden  plugs  as  big  as  table-spoons  put  through  slits  in  the 
under  lip  ;  the  teeth  of  animals  stuck  point  outwards  through 
holes  in  the  cheeks ;  all  familiar  things  among  the  lower  races 
up  and  down  in  the  world.  The  modern  earring  of  the  higher 
nations  stands  not  as  a  product  of  our  own  times,  but  as  a  relic 
of  a  ruder  mental  condition,  one  of  the  many  cases  in  which  the 


2  INTRODUCTION. 

result  of  progress  has  been  not  positive  in  adding  something 
new,  but  negative  in  taking  away  something  belonging  to  an 
earlier  state  of  things. 

It  is  indeed  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  Civilization,  being  a 
process  of  long  and  complex  growth,  can  only  be  thoroughly 
understood  when  studied  through  its  entire  range  ;  that  the  past 
is  continually  needed  to  explain  the  present,  and  the  whole  to 
explain  the  part.  A  feeling  of  this  may  account  in  some 
measure  for  the  eager  curiosity  which  is  felt  for  descriptions  of 
the  life  and  habits  of  strange  and  ancient  races,  in  Cook's 
Voyages,  Catlin's  'North  American  Indians,'  Prescott's  'Mexico' 
imd  '  Peru,'  even  in  the  meagre  details  which  antiquaries  have 
succeeded  in  recovering  of  the  lives  of  the  Lake-dwellers  of 
Switzerland  and  the  Reindeer  Tribes  of  Central  France.  For 
matters  of  practical  life  these  people  may  be  nothing  to  us ;  but 
in  reading  of  them  we  are  consciously  or  unconsciously  com- 
pleting the  picture,  and  tracing  out  the  course  of  life,  of  what 
l.us  been  so  well  said  to  be,  after  all,  our  most  interesting  object 
of  study,  mankind. 

Though,  however,  the  Early  History  of  Man  is  felt  to  be  an 
attractive  subject,  and  great  masses  of  the  materials  needed  for 
working  it  out  have  long  been  forthcoming,  they  have  as  yet 
Lren  turned  to  but  little  account.  The  opinion  that  the  use  of 
facts  is  to  illustrate  theories,  the  confusion  between  History  and 
Mythology,  which  is  only  now  being  partly  cleared  up,  an  undue 
confidence  in  the  statements  of  ancient  writers,  whose  means  of 
information  about  times  and  places  remote  from  themselves  were 
often  much  narrower  than  those  which  are,  ages  later,  at  our  own 
command,  have  been  among  the  hindrances  to  the  growth  of  sound 
knowledge  in  this  direction.  The  time  for  writing  a  systematic 
treatise  on  the  subject  does  not  seem  yet  to  have  come ;  certainly 
nothing  of  the  kind  is  attempted  in  the  present  series  of  essays, 
whose  contents,  somewhat  miscellaneous  as  they  are,  scarcely 
come  into  contact  with  great  part  of  the  most  important  problems 
involved,  such  as  the  relation  of  the  bodily  characters  of  the 
various  races,  the  question  of  their  origin  and  descent,  the 
development  of  morals,  religion,  law,  and  many  others.  The 
matters  discussed  have  been  chosen,  not  so  much  for  their 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

absolute  importance,  as  because,  while  they  are  among  the  easiest 
and  most  inviting  parts  of  the  subject,  it  is  possible  so  to  work 
them  as  to  bring  into  view  certain  general  lines  of  argument, 
which  apply  not  only  to  them,  but  also  to  the  more  complex  and 
difficult  problems  involved  in  a  complete  treatise  on  the  History 
of  Civilization.  These  lines  of  argument,  and  their  relation  to 
the  different  essays,  may  be  briefly  stated  at  the  outset. 

In  the  first  place,  when  a  general  law  can  be  inferred  from 
a  group  of  facts,  the  use  of  detailed  history  is  very  much  super- 
seded. When  we  see  a  magnet  attract  a  piece  of  iron,  having 
come  by  experience  to  the  general  law  that  magnets  attract 
iron,  we  do  not  take  the  trouble  to  go  into  the  history  of  the 
particular  magnet  in  question.  To  some  extent  this  direct 
reference  to  general  laws  may  be  made  in  the  study  of  Civili- 
zation. The  four  next  chapters  of  the  present  book  treat  of  the 
various  ways  in  which  man  utters  his  thoughts,  in  Gestures, 
"Words,  Pictures,  and  Writing.  Here,  though  Speech  and 
Writing  must  be  investigated  historically,  depending  as  they 
do  in  so  great  measure  on  the  words  and  characters  which  were 
current  in  the  world  thousands  of  years  ago,  on  the  other  hand 
the  Gesture-Language  and  Picture-Writing  may  be  mostly  ex- 
plained without  the  aid  of  history,  as  direct  products  of  the 
human  mind.  In  the  following  chapter  on  "  Images  and 
Names,"  an  attempt  is  made  to  refer  a  great  part  of  the  beliefs 
and  practices  included  under  the  general  name  of  magic,  to  one 
very  simple  mental  law,  as  resulting  from  a  condition  of  mind 
which  we  of  the  more  advanced  races  have  almost  outgrown, 
and  in  doing  so  have  undergone  one  of  the  most  notable 
changes  which  we  can  trace  as  having  happened  to  mankind. 
And  lastly,  a  particular  habit  of  mind  accounts  for  a  class  of 
stories  which  are  here  grouped  together  as  "  Myths  of  Obser- 
vation," as  distinguished  from  the  tales  which  make  up  the 
great  bulk  of  the  folk-lore  of  the  world,  many  of  which  latter 
are  now  being  shown  by  the  new  school  of  Comparative  Mytho- 
logists  in  Germany  and  England  to  have  come  into  existence 
also  by  virtue  of  a  general  law,  but  a  very  different  one. 

But  it  is  only  in  particular  parts  of  Human  Culture,  where 
the  facts  have  not,  so  to  speak,  travelled  far  from  their  causes, 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

that  this  direct  method  is  practicable.  Most  of  its  phenomena 
have  grown  into  shape  out  of  such  a  complication  of  events, 
that  the  laborious  piecing  together  of  their  previous  history  is 
the  only  safe  way  of  studying  them.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  far 
a  theologian  or  a  lawyer  would  go  wrong  who  should  throw 
history  aside,  and  attempt  to  explain,  on  abstract  principles, 
the  existence  of  the  Protestant  Church  or  the  Code  Napoleon. 
A  Romanesque  or  an  Early  English  cathedral  is  not  to  be 
studied  as  though  all  that  the  architect  had  to  do  was  to  take 
stone  and  mortar  and  set  up  a  building  for  a  given  purpose. 
The  development  of  the  architecture  of  Greece,  its  passage  into 
the  architecture  of  Rome,  the  growth  of  Christian  ceremony 
and  symbolism,  are  only  part  of  the  elements  which  went  to 
form  the  state  of  things  in  which  the  genius  of  the  builder  had 
to  work  out  the  requirements  of  the  moment.  The  late  Mr. 
Buckle  did  good  service  in  urging  students  to  look  through 
the  details  of  history  to  the  great  laws  of  Human  Develop- 
ment which  lie  behind;  but  his  attempt  to  explain,  by  a  few 
rash  generalizations,  the  complex  phases  of  European  history, 
is  a  warning  of  the  danger  of  too  hasty  an  appeal  to  first 
principles. 

As,  however,  the  earlier  civilization  lies  very  much  out  of  the 
beaten  track  of  history,  the  place  of  direct  records  has  to  be 
supplied  in  great  measure  by  indirect  evidence,  such  as  Anti- 
quities, Language,  and  Mythology.  This  makes  it  generally 
difficult  to  get  a  sound  historical  basis  to  work  on,  but  there 
happens  to  be  a  quantity  of  material  easily  obtainable,  which 
bears  on  the  development  of  some  of  the  more  common  and 
useful  arts.  Thus  in  the  eighth  and  ninth  chapters,  the  tran- 
sition from  implements  of  stone  to  those  of  metal  is  demon- 
strated to  have  taken  place  in  almost  every  district  of  the 
habitable  globe,  and  a  progress  from  ruder  to  more  perfect 
modes  of  making  fire  and  boiling  food  is  traced  in  many  dif- 
ferent countries ;  while  in  the  seventh,  evidence  is  collected  on 
the  important  problem  of  the  relation  which  Progress  has  borne 
to  Decline  in  art  and  knowledge  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

In  the  remote  times  and  places  where  direct  history  is  at 
fault,  the  study  of  Civilization,  Culture-History  as  it  is  conve- 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

niently  called  in  Germany,  becomes  itself  an  important  aid  to 
the  historian,  as  a  means  of  re-constructing  the  lost  records 
of  early  or  barbarous  times.  But  its  use  as  contributing  to  the 

O 

early  history  of  mankind  depends  mainly  on  the  answering  of  the 
following  question,  which  runs  through  all  the  present  essays, 
and  binds  them  together  as  various  cases  of  a  single  problem. 

When  similar  arts,  customs,  beliefs,  or  legends  are  found  in 
several  distant  regions,  among  peoples  not  known  to  be  of  the 
same  stock,  how  is  this  similarity  to  be  accounted  for  ?  Some- 
times it  may  be  ascribed  to  the  like  working  of  men's  minds 
under  like  conditions,  and  sometimes  it  is  a  proof  of  blood 
relationship  or  of  intercourse,  direct  or  indirect,  between  the 
races  among  whom  it  is  found.  In  the  one  case  it  has  no 
historical  value  whatever,  while  in  the  other  it  has  this  value 
in  a  high  degree,  and  the  ever-recurring  problem  is  how  to 
distinguish  between  the  two.  An  example  on  each  side  may 
serve  to  bring  the  matter  into  a  clearer  light. 

The  general  prevalence  of  a  belief  in  the  continuance  of  the 
soul's  existence  after  death,  does  not  prove  that  all  mankind 
have  inherited  such  &  belief  from  a  common  source.  It  may 
have  been  so,  but  the  historical  argument  is  made  valueless 
by  the  fact  that  certain  natural  phenomena  may  have  suggested 
to  the  mind  of  man,  while  in  a  certain  stage  of  development, 
the  idea  of  a  future  state,  and  this  not  once  only,  but  again 
and  again  in  different  regions  and  at  different  times.  These 
phenomena  may  prove  nothing  of  the  kind  to  us,  but  that  is 
not  the  question.  The  reasoning  of  the  savage  is  not  to  be 
judged  by  the  rules  which  belong  to  a  higher  education;  and 
what  the  ethnologist  requires  in  such  a  case,  is  not  to  know 
what  the  facts  prove  to  his  own  mind,  but  what  inference  the 
very  differently  trained  mind  of  the  savage  may  draw  from  them. 

The  belief  that  man  has  a  soul  capable  of  existing  apart 
from  the  body  it  belongs  to,  and  continuing  to  live,  for  a  time 
at  least,  after  the  body  is  dead  and  buried,  fits  perfectly  in  such 
a  mind  with  the  fact  that  the  shadowy  forms  of  men  and  women 
do  appear  to  others,  when  the  men  and  women  themselves  are 
at  a  distance,  and  after  they  are  dead.  We  call  these  appari- 
tions dreams  or  phantasms,  according  as  the  person  to  whom 


6  INTRODUCTION. 

they  appear  is  asleep  or  awake,  and  when  we  hear  of  their  occur- 
rence in  ordinary  life,  set  them  down  as  subjective  processes 
of  the  mind.  We  do  not  thiiik  that  the  phantom  of  the  dark 
Brazilian  who  used  to  haunt  Spinoza  was  a  real  person;  that 
the  head  which  stood  before  a  late  distinguished  English  peer, 
whenever  he  was  out  of  health,  was  a  material  object ;  that  the 
fiends  which  torment  the  victim  of  delirium  tremens,  are  what 
and  where  they  seem  to  him  to  be ;  that  any  real  occurrence 
corresponds  to  the  dreams  of  the  old  men  who  tell  us  they  were 
flogged  last  night  at  school.  It  is  only  a  part  of  mankind,  how- 
over,  who  thus  disconnect  dreams  and  visions  from  the  objects 
whose  forms  they  bear.  Among  the  less  civilized  races,  the  sepa- 
ration of  subjective  and  objective  impressions,  which  in  this,  as  in 
several  other  matters,  makes  the  most  important  difference  between 
the  educated  man  and  the  savage,  is  much  less  fully  carried  out. 
This  is  indeed  true  to  some  extent  among  the  higher  nations, 
for  no  Greenlander  or  Kaffir  ever  mixed  up  his  subjectivity  with 
the  evidence  of  his  senses  into  a  more  hopeless  confusion  than 
the  modern  spiritualist.  As  the  subject  is  only  brought  forward 
here  as  an  illustration,  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  at  length  into 
its  details.  A  few  picked  examples  will  bring  into  view  the  two 
great  theories  of  dreams  and  visions,  current  among  the  lower 
races.  One  is,  that  when  a  man  is  asleep  or  seeing  visions,  the 
figures  which  appear  to  him  come  from  their  places  and  stand 
over  against  him ;  the  other,  that  the  soul  of  the  dreamer  or 
seer  goes  out  on  its  travels,  and  comes  home  with  a  remembrance 
of  what  it  has  seen. 

The  Australians,  says  Sir  George  Grey,  believe  that  the 
nightmare  is  caused  by  an  evil  spirit.  To  get  rid  of  it  they 
jump  up,  catch  a  lighted  brand  from  the  fire,  and  with  various 
muttered  imprecations  fling  it  in  the  direction  where  they  think 
the  spirit  is.  He  simply  came  for  a  light,  and  having  got  it,  he 
will  go  away.1  Others  tell  of  the  demon  Koin,  a  creature  who 
has  the  appearance  of  a  native,  and  like  them  is  painted  with 
pipe-clay  and  carries  a  fire- stick.  He  comes  sometimes  when 
they  are  asleep  and  carries  a  man  off  as  an  eagle  does  his  prey. 
The  shout  of  the  victim's  companions  makes  the  demon  let  him 
1  Grey,  '  Journals ; '  London,  1841,  ToL  ii.  p.  339. 


INTRODUCTION'.  7 

drop,  or  else  he  carries  him  off  to  his  fire  in  the  hush.  Tho 
unfortunate  black  tries  to  cry  out,  but  feels  himself  all  but 
choked  and  cannot.  At  daylight  Koin  disappears,  and  the  native 
finds  himself  brought  safely  back  to  his  own  fireside.1  Even  in 
Europe,  such  expressions  as  being  .ridden  by  a  hag,  or  by  the 
devil,  preserve  the  recollection  of  a  similar  train  of  thought.  In 
the  evil  demons  who  trouble  people  in  their  sleep,  the  Incubi 
and  Succubi,  the  belief  in  this  material  and  personal  character 
of  the  figures  seen  in  dreams  comes  strongly  out,  perhaps 
nowhere  more  strikingly  than  among  the  natives  of  the  Tonga 
Islands.3  "  Whoso  seeth  me  in  his  sleep,"  said  Mohammed. 
"  seeth  me  truly,  for  Satan  cannot,  assume  the  similitude  of  m} 
form." 

Mr.  St.  John  says  that  the  Dayaks  regard  dreams  as  actual 
occurrences.  They  think  that  in  sleep  the  soul  sometimes  re- 
mains in  the  body,  and  sometimes  leaves  it  and  travels  far  away, 
and  that  both  when  in  and  out  of  the  body  it  sees  and  hears 
and  talks,  and  altogether  has  a  prescience  given  to  it,  which, 
when  the  body  is  in  its  natural  state,  it  does  not  enjoy. 
Fainting  fits,  or  a  state  of  conia,  are  thought  to  be  caused  by 
the  departure  or  absence  of  the  soul  on  some  distant  expedition 
of  its  own.  When  a  European  dreams  of  his  distant  country, 
the  Dayaks  think  his  soul  has  annihilated  space,  and  paid  a 
flying  visit  to  Europe  during  the  night.3  Very  many  tribes 
believe  in  this  way  that  dreams  are  incidents  which  happen  to 
the  spirit  in  its  wanderings  from  the  body,  and  the  idea  has 
even  expressed  itself  in  a  superstitious  objection  to.  waking  a 
sleeper,  for  fear  of  disturbing  his  body  while  his  soul  is  out.4 
Father  Charlevoix  found  both  the  theories  in  question  current 
among  the  Indians  of  North  America.  A  dream  might  either 
be  a  visit  from  the  soul  of  the  object  dreamt  of,  or  it  might  be 
one  of  the  souls  of  the  dreamer  going  about  the  world,  while  the 
other — for  every  man  has  two — stayed  behind  with  the  body. 
Dreams,  they  think,  are  of  supernatural  origin,  and  it  is  a 

1  Backhouse,  '  Visit  to  the  Australian  Colonies  ; '  London,  1843,  p.  555. 

2  Mariner,  '  Tonga  Islands  ; '  2nd  ed.,  London,  1818,  vol.  ii.  p.  112. 

3  St.  John,  'Forests  of  the  Far  East  ; '  London,  1862,  vol.  i.  p.  189. 

4  Eastiau,  'Der  Mensch  in  der  Geschichte  ; '  Leipzig,  I860,  vol.  ii.  p.  318,  etc. 


8  INTRODUCTION". 

religious  duty  to  attend  to  them.  That  the  white  men  should 
look  upon  a  dream  as  a  matter  of  no  consequence  is  a  thing  they 
cannot  understand.1 

How  like  a  dream  is  to  the  popular  notion  of  a  soul,  a  shade, 
a  spirit,  or  a  ghost,  need  not  be  said.  But  there  are  facts  which 
bring  the  dream  and  the  ghost  into  yet  closer  connection  than 
follows  from  mere  resemblance.  Thus  the  belief  is  found  among 
the  Finnish  races  that  the  spirits  of  the  dead  can  plague  the 
living  in  their  sleep,  and  bring  sickness  and  harm  upon  them.2 
Herodotus  relates  that  the  Nasarnones  practise  divination  in  the 
following  manner: — they  resort  to  the  tombs  of  their  ancestors, 
and  after  offering  prayers,  go  to  sleep  by  them,  and  whatever 
dream  appeai-s  to  them  they  take  for  their  answer.3  In  modern 
Africa,  the  missionary  Casalis  says  of  the  Basuto,  "Persons  who 
are  pursued  in  their  sleep  by  the  image  of  a  deceased  relation, 
are  often  known  to  sacrifice  a  victim  on  the  tomb  of  the  defunct, 
in  order,  as  they  say,  to  calm  his  disquietude."4  Clearly,  then, 
a  man  who  thinks  he  sees  in  sleep  the  apparitions  of  his  dead 
relatives  and  friends  has  a  reason  for  believing  that  their  spirits 
outlive  their  bodies,  and  this  reason  lies  in  no  far-fetched  induc- 
tion, but  in  what  seems  to  be  the  plain  evidence  of  his  senses. 
I  have  set  the  argument  down  as  belonging  especially  to  the 
lower  stages  of  mental  development,  though  indeed  I  have  been 
startled  by  hearing  it  myself  urged  in  sober  earnest  very  far  out- 
side the  range  of  savage  life. 

It  is  interesting  to  read  how  Lucretius,  reasoning  against  the 
belief  in  a  future  life,  takes  notice  of  the  argument  from  dreams 
as  telling  against  him,  and  states,  in  opposition  to  it,  the  doctrine 
that  not  dreams  only,  but  even  ordinary  appearances  and  imagi- 
nations, are  caused  by  film-like  images  which  fly  off  from  the 
surfaces  of  real  objects,  and  come  in  contact  with  our  minds  and 
senses, — 

"  Touching  these  matters,  let  me  now  explain, 
How  there  are  so-called  images  of  things 

1  Charlevoii,  'Hist,  et  Descr.  Gen.  de  la  Nouvelle-France ; '  Paris,  1744,  vol.  vi. 
p.  78. 

1  CastreX  '  Vorlesungen  iiber  die  Finnische  Mythologie  ;'  (Tr.  and  Ed.  Schiefner ;) 
St.  Petersburgh,  1853,  p.  120.  s  Herod,  iv.  172.  Sec  Mela,  L  8. 

4  Casalis,  'The  Basutos  ;'  London,  1861,  p.  245. 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

Which,  like  films  torn  from  bodies'  outmost  face 
Hither  and  thither  nutter  through  the  air  ; 
These  scare  us,  meeting  us  in  waking  hours, 
And  in  our  dreams,  when  oftentimes  we  see 
Marvellous  shapes,  and  phantoms  of  the  dead 
Which  oft  have  roused  us  horror-struck  from  sleep  ; 
Lest  we  should  judge  perchance  that  souls  escape 
From  Acheron,  shades  flit  'mid  living  men, 
Or  aught  of  us  can  after  death  endure."  l 

Never,  perhaps,  has  the  train  of  thought  which  the  Epicurean 
poet  so  ingeniously  comhats  been  more  clearly  drawn  out  than  in 
Madge  Wildfire's  rambling  talk  of  her  dead  baby,  "  Whiles  I 
think  my  puir  bairn's  dead — ye  ken  very  weel  it's  buried — but 
that  signifies  naething.  I  have  had  it  on  my  knee  a  hundred 
times,  and  a  hundred  till  that,  since  it  was  buried — and  how 
could  that  be  were  it  dead,  ye  ken — it's  merely  impossible." 

It  appears  then,  from  these  considerations,  that  when  we  find 
dim  notions  of  a  future  state  current  in  the  remotest  regions  of 
the  world,  we  must  not  thence  assume  that  they  were  all  diffused 
from  a  single  geographical  centre.  The  case  is  one  in  which  any 
one  plausible  explanation  from  natural  causes  is  sufficient  to  bar 
the  argument  from  historical  connexion.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  is  nothing  to  hinder  such  an  argument  in  the  following 
case,  which  is  taken  as  showing  the  opposite  side  of  the  problem. 

The  great  class  of  stories  known  as  Beast  Fables  have  of  late 
risen  much  in  public  estimation.  In  old  times  they  were  listened 
to  by  high  and  low  with  the  keenest  enjoyment  for  their  own 
sake.  Then  they  were  wrested  from  their  proper  nature  into 
means  of  teaching  little  moral  lessons,  and  at  last  it  came  to 
be  the  most  contemptuous  thing  that  could  be  said  of  a  silly, 

1  Lucret.  '  De  Rerum  Natura,'  iv.  29-39  :— 

"  Nunc  agere  incipiam  tibi,  quod  vementer  ad  has  rea 
Attinet,  esse  ea  quas  rerum  simulacra  vocamus  ; 
Quae,  quasi  membranze  summo  de  corpore  rerum 
Dereptse,  volitant  ultroque  citroque  per  auras, 
Atque  eadem  nobis  vigilantibus  obvia  mentes 
Terrificant  atque  in  somnis,  cum  ssepe  figuras 
Contuimur  miras  simulacraque  luce  carentum, 
Qua3  nos  horrifice  langnentis  ssepe  sopore 
Excierunt ;  ne  forte  animas  Acherunte  reamur 
Effugere  aut  umbras  inter  vivos  volitare, 
Neve  aliquid  nostri  post  mortem  posse  relinquL" 


10  INTRODUCTION. 

pointless  tale,  to  call  it  a  "  cock  and  bull  story."  In  our  own 
day,  however,  a  generation  among  whom  there  has  sprung  up  a 
new  knowledge  of  old  times,  and  with  it  a  new  sympathy  with 
old  thoughts  and  feelings,  not  only  appreciate  the  beast  fables 
for  themselves,  but  find  in  their  diffusion  over  the  world  an  im- 
portant aid  to  early  history.  Thus  Dr.  Dasent  has  pointed  out 
that  popular  stories  found  in  the  west  and  south  of  Africa  must 
have  come  from  the  same  source  with  old  myths  current  in  distant 
regions  of  Europe.1  Still  later,  Dr.  Bleek  has  published  a  collec- 
tion of  Hottentot  Fables,2  which  shows  that  other  mythic  epi- 
sodes, long  familiar  in  remote  countries,  have  found  their  way 
among  these  rude  people,  and  established  themselves  as  house- 
hold tales. 

A  Dutchman  found  a  Snake,  who  was  lying  under  a  great 
stone,  and  could  not  get  away.  He  lifted  up  the  stone,  and  set 
her  free,  but  when  he  had  done  it  she  wanted  to  eat  him.  The 
Man  objected  to  this,  and  appealed  to  the  Hare  and  the  Hyena, 
but  both  said  it  was  right.  Then  they  asked  the  Jackal,  but  he 
would  not  even  believe  the  thing  could  have  happened,  unless  he 
saw  it  with  his  two  eyes.  So  the  Snake  lay  down,  and  the  Man 
put  the  stone  upon  her,  just  to  show  how  it  was.  "  Now  let  her 
lie  there,"  said  the  Jackal.  This  is  only  a  version  of  the  story 
of  the  Ungrateful  Crocodile,  which  the  sage  Dublin  in  the 
Arabian  Nights  declined  to  tell  the  king  while  the  executioner 
was  standing  ready  to  cut  his  head  off.  It  is  given  by  Mr.  Lane 
in  his  Notes,3  and  I  am  not  sure  that  the  simpler  Hottentot 
version  is  not  the  neater  of  the  two.  Again,  the  name  of 
"  Reynard  in  South  Africa,"  given  by  Dr.  Bleek  to  his  Hotten- 
tot tales,  is  amply  justified  by  their  containing  familiar  episodes 
belonging  to  the  mediaeval  "  Reynard  the  Fox."4  The  Jackal 
shams  death  and  lies  in  the  road  till  the  fish-waggon  comes  by, 
and  the  waggoner  throws  him  in  to  make  a  kaross  of  his  skin, 
but  the  cunning  beast  throws  a  lot  of  fish  out  into  the  road,  and 
then  jumps  out  himself.  In  another  place,  the  Lion  is  sick,  and 

1  Dasent,  '  Popular  Tales  from  the  Norse,'  2nd  ed.,  Edinburgh,  1859,  p.  1. 

2  Bleek,  'Reynard  the  Fox  in  South  Africa; 'London,  1864,  pp.  11-13,  16,  19,  23. 

3  Lane,  'The  Thousand  and  One  Nights,'  new  edit,  London,  1S59,  vol.  i.  pp.  84, 
114. 

4  Jacob  Grimm,  '  Keinhart  Fuchs  ; '  Berlin,  1834,  pp.  cxxii.  1.  30,  cclxxii. 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

all  the  beasts  go  to  see  him  but  the  Jackal.  His  enemy  the 
Hyena  fetches  him  to  give  his  advice,  so  he  comes  before  the 
Lion,  and  says  he  has  been  to  ask  the  witch  what  was  to  be 
done  for  his  sick  uncle,  and  the  remedy  is  for  the  Lion  to  pull 
the  Hyena's  skin  off  over  his  ears,  and  put  it  on  himself  while  it 
is  warm.  Again,  the  trick  by  which  Chanticleer  gets  his  head 
out  of  Reynard's  mouth  by  making  him  answer  the  farmer, 
reminds  one  of -the  way  in  which,  in  the  Hottentot  tale,  the 
Cock  makes  the  Jackal  say  his  prayers,  and  when  the  outwitted 
beast  folds  his  hands  and  shuts  his  eyes,  flies  off  and  makes  his 
escape.  Of  course  these  tales,  though  adapted  to  native  circum- 
stances and  with  very  clever  native  turns,  may  be  all  of  very 
recent  introduction.  Such  a  story  as  that  which  introduces  a 
fish-waggon,  would  be  naturally  referred  to  the  Dutch  boers, 
from  whom  indeed  all  the  Reynard  stories  are  likely  to  have 
come.  One  curious  passage  tends  to  show  that  the  stories  are 
taken,  not  from  the  ancient  versions  of  Reynard,  but  from  some 
interpolated  modern  rendering.  A  proof  that  Jacob  Grimm 
brings  forward  of  the  independent,  secluded  course  of  the  old 
German  Beast-Saga,  is,  that  it  did  not  take  up  into  itself  stories 
long  current  elsewhere,  which  would  have  fitted  admirably  into 
it, — thus,  for  instance,  JEsop's  story  of  the  Fox  who  will  not  go 
into  the  Lion's  den  because  he  only  sees  the  footsteps  going  in, 
but  none  coming  out,  is  nowhere  to  be  found  in  the  medieval 
Reynard.  But  we  find  in  the  Hottentot  tales  that  this  very 
episode  has  found  its  way  in,  and  exactly  into  its  fitting  place. 
"  The  Lion,  it  is  said,  was  ill,  and  they  all  went  to  see  him  in 
his  suffering.  But  the  Jackal  did  not  go,  because  the  traces  of 
the  people  who  went  to  see  him  did  not  turn  back." 

As  it  happens,  we  know  from  other  sources  enough  to  explain 
the  appearance  in  South  Africa  of  stories  from  Reynard  and  the 
Arabian  Nights  by  referring  them  to  European  or  Moslem 
influence.  But  even  without  such  knowledge,  the  tales  them- 
selves prove  an  historical  connexion,  near  or  remote,  between 
Europe,  Egypt,  and  South  Africa.  To  try  to  make  such 
evidence  stand  alone  is  a  more  ambitious  task.  In  a  chapter 
on  the  Geographical  Distribution  of  Myths,  I  have  compared  a 
series  of  stories  collected  on  the  American  Continent  with  their 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

analogues  elsewhere,  endeavouring  thereby  to  show  an  historical 
connexion  between  the  mythology  of  America  and  that  of  the  rest 
of  the  world,  but  with  what  success  the  reader  must  decide.  In 
another  chapter,  some  remarkable  customs,  which  are  found 
spread  over  distant  tracts  of  country,  are  examined  in  order  to 
ascertain,  if  possible,  whether  any  historical  argument  may  be 
grounded  upon  them. 

For  the  errors  which  no  doubt  abound  in  the  present  essays, 
and  for  the  superficial  working  of  a  great  subject,  a  word  may 
be  said  in  apology.  In  discussing  questions  in  which  some- 
times the  leading  facts  have  never  before  been  even  roughly 
grouped,  it  is  very  difficult  not  only  to  reject  the  wrong  evi- 
dence, but  to  reproduce  the  right  with  accuracy,  and  the  way 
in  which  new  information  comes  in,  which  quite  alters  the  face 
of  the  old,  does  not  tend  to  promote  over-confidence  in  first  re- 
sults. For  instance,  after  having  followed  other  observers  in 
setting  down  as  peculiar  to  the  South  Sea  Islands,  in  or  near 
the  Samoan  group,  an  ingenious  little  drilling  instrument  which 
will  be  hereafter  described,  I  found  it  kept  in  stock  in  the 
London  tool  shops ;  mistakes  of  this  kind  must  be  frequent  till 
our  knowledge  of  the  lower  civilization  is  much  more  thoroughly 
collected  and  sifted.  More  accuracy  might  indeed  be  obtained 
by  keeping  to  a  very  small  number  of  subjects,  but  our  accounts 
of  the  culture  of  the  lower  races,  being  mostly  unclassified,  have 
to  be  gone  through  as  a  whole,  and  up  to  a  certain  point  it  is  a 
question  whether  the  student  of  a  very  limited  field  might  not 
lose  more  in  largeness  of  view  than  he  gained  by  concentration. 
Whatever  be  the  fate  of  my  arguments,  any  one  who  collects 
and  groups  a  mass  of  evidence,  and  makes  an  attempt  to  turn  it 
to  account  which  may  lead  to  something  better,  has,  I  think,  a 
claim  to  be  exempt  from  any  very  harsh  criticism  of  mistakes 
and  omissions.  As  the  Knight  says  in  the  beginning  of  his 
Tale:— 

"  I  hare,  God  wot,  a  large  feeld  to  ere  ; 
And  wayke  ben  the  oxen  in  my  plough." 


[Note  to  2nd  Edition,  1870.     In  renewing  some  special  acknowledgments 
made  in  1865  as  to  the  composition  of  the  present  work,  I  cannot  pass  with  a 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

simple  expression  of  obligation  the  name  of  the  late  Henry  Christy.  For  the 
ten  years  during  which  I  enjoyed  his  friendship,  he  gave  me  the  benefit  of  his 
wide  and  minute  knowledge,  and  I  was  able  to  follow  all  the  details  of  his 
ethnological  researches.  He  died  in  May,  18G5,  while  carrying  on  investigations 
in  the  ossiferous  caverns  of  Central  France  with  Prof.  Edouard  Lavtet.  The 
'•  Reliquire  Aquitanicse,"  an  elaborate  account  of  these  explorations,  is  the 
principal  literary  work  bearing  the  name  of  Henry  Christy.  But  his  place  in 
the  history  of  Ethnology  will  be  marked  by  the  magnificent  collection  which 
he  bequeathed  to  the  nation,  and  which,  belonging  to  the  British  Museum, 
but  still  kept  at  his  residence,  103,  Victoria  Street,  Westminster,  under  the 
name  of  the  Christy  Collection,  has  been  developed  into  one  of  the  most 
perfect  Ethnological  Museums  in  Europe. 

I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  W.  R.  Scott,  Director  of  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  Institution 
at  Exeter,  for  much  of  the  assistance  which  has  enabled  me  to  write  about  the 
Gesture-Language  with  something  of  the  confidence  of  an  "  expert ; "  and  I 
have  to  thank  Prof.  Pott,  of  Halle,  and  Prof.  Lazarus,  of  Berlin,  for  personal 
help  in  several  difficult  questions.  Among  books.  I  have  drawn  largely  from 
the  philological  works  of  Prof.  Steinthal,  of  Berlin,  and  from  the  invaluable 
collection  of  facts  bearing  on  the  history  of  civilization  in  the  "  Allgemeine 
Cultur-Geschichte  der  Menschheit,"  and  "  Allgemeine  Culturwissenschaft,"  o£ 
the  late  Dr.  Gustav  Klemm,  of  Dresden.] 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE    GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

THE  power  which  man  possesses  of  uttering  his  thoughts  is 
one  of  the  most  essential  elements  of  his  civilization.  "Whether 
he  can  even  think  at  all  without  some  means  of  outward  expres- 
sion is  a  metaphysical  question  which  need  not  be  discussed 
here.  Thus  much  will  hardly  be  denied  by  any  one,  that  mini's 
power  of  utterance,  so  far  exceeding  any  that  the  lower  aninuils 
possess,  is  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  his  immense  pre-emi- 
nence over  them. 

Of  the  means  which  man  has  of  uttering  or  expressing  that 
which  is  in  his  mind,  speech  is  by  far  the  most  important,  so 
much  so,  that  when  we  speak  of  tittering  our  thoughts,  the 
phrase  is  understood  to  mean  expressing  them  in  words.  But 
when  we  say  that  man's  power  of  utterance  is  one  of  the  groat 
differences  between  him  and  the  lower  animals,  we  must  attach 
to  the  word  utterance  a  sense  more  fully  conformable  to  its 
etymology.  As  Steinthal  admits,  the  deaf-and-dumb  man  is 
the  living  refutation  of  the  proposition,  that  man  cannot  think 
without  speech,  unless  we  allow  the  understood  notion  of  speech 
as  the  utterance  of  thought  by  articulate  sounds  to  be  too  nar- 
row.1 To  utter  a  thought  is  literally  to  put  it  outside  us,  as  to 
express  is  to  squeeze  it  out.  Grossly  material  as  these  meta- 
phors are,  they  are  .the  best  terms  we  have  for  that  wonderful 
process  by  which  a  man,  by  some  bodily  action,  can  not  only 
make  other  men's  minds  reproduce  more  or  less  exactly  the 
workings  of  his  own,  but  can  even  receive  back  from  the  out- 
ward sign  an  impression  similar  to  theirs,  as  though  not  he 
himself  but  some  one  else  had  made  it. 

1  Steinthal,  ' Ceber  die  Sprache der  Taubstummeri'  (in  Frutz's  'Deutscbes  Museum.' 
Jan.  to  June,  1851,  p.  904,  etc.). 


THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  15 

Besides  articulate  speech,  the  principal  means  by  which  man 
can  express  what  is  in  his  mind  are  the  Gesture-Language, 
Picture  -Writing,  and  Word- Writing.  If  we  knew  now,  what 
we  hope  to  know  some  day,  how  Language  sprang  up  and  grew 
in  the  world,  our  knowledge  of  man's  earliest  condition  and 
history  would  stand  on  a  very  different  basis  from  what  it  now 
does.  But  we  know  so  little  about  the  Origin  of  Language, 
that  even  the  greatest  philologists  are  forced  either  to  avoid  the 
subject  altogether,  or  to  turn  themselves  into  metaphysicians  in 
order  to  discuss  it.  The  Gesture-Language  and  Picture-Writing, 
however,  insignificant  as  they  are  in  practice  in  comparison  with 
Speech  and  Phonetic  Writing,  have  this  great  claim  to  considera- 
tion, that  we  can  really  understand  them  as  thoroughly  as 
perhaps  we  can  understand  anything,  and  by  studying  them  we 
can  realize  to  ourselves  in  some  measure  a  condition  of  the 
human  mind  which  underlies  anything  which  has  as  yet  been 
traced  in  even  the  lowest  dialect  of  Language  if  taken  as  a  whole. 
Though,  with  the  exception  of  words  in  which  we  can  trace  the 
effects  either  of  direct  emotion,  as  in  interjections,  or  of  imitative 
formation,  as  in  "  peewit "  and  "  cuckoo,"  wre  cannot  at  present 
tell  by  what  steps  man  came  to  express  himself  by  words,  we 
can  at  least  see  how  he  still  does  come  to  express  himself  by 
signs  and  pictures,  and  so  get  some  idea  of  the  nature  of  this 
giva;  movement,  which  no  lower  animal  is  known  to  have  made 
or  shown  the  least  sign  of  making.  The  idea  that  the  Gesture- 
Language  represents  a  distinct  separate  stage  of  human  utter- 
ance, through  which  man  passed  before  he  came  to  speak,  has 
no  support  from  facts.  But  it  may  be  plausibly  maintained, 
that  in  curly  stages  of  the  development  of  language,  while  as  yet 
the  vocabulary  was  very  rude  and  scanty,  gesture  had  an  import- 
ance as  an  element  of  expression,  which  in  conditions  of  highly 
organized  language  it  has  lost. 

The  Gesture-Language,  or  Language  of  Signs,  is  in  great 
part  a  system  of  representing  objects  and  ideas  by  a  rude  out- 
line-gesture, imitating  their  most  striking  features.  It  is,  as 
has  been  well  said  by  a  deaf-and-dumb  man,  "  a  picture-lan- 
guage." Here  at  once  its  essential  difference  from  speech 
'becomes  evident.  Why  the  words  stand  and  go  mean  what  they 


16  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

do  is  a  question  to  \vhich  we  cannot  as  yet  give  the  shadow  of 
an  answer,  and  if  we  had  been  taught  to  say  "  stand  "  where  we 
now  say  "  go,"  and  "  go  "  where  we  now  say  "  stand,"  it  would 
be  practically  all  the  same  to  us.  No  doubt  there  was  a  suffi- 
cient reason  for  these  words  receiving  the  meanings  they  now 
bear,  as  indeed  there  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  everything;  but 
so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  there  might  as  well  have  been  none, 
for  we  have  quite  lost  sight'  of  the  connexion  between  the  word 
and  the  idea.  But  in  the  gesture-language  the  relation  between 
idea  and  sign  not  only  always  exists,  but  is  scarcely  lost  sight  of 
for  a  moment.  When  a  deaf-and-dumb  child  holds  his  two  first 
fingers  forked  like  a  pair  of  legs,  and  makes  them  stand  and 
walk  upon  the  table,  we  want  no  teaching  to  show  us  what  this 
means,  nor  why  it  is  done. 

This  definition  of  the  gesture-language  is,  however,  not  com- 
plete. Such  objects  as  are  actually  in  the  presence  of  the  speaker, 
or  may  be  supposed  so,  are  brought  bodily  into  the  conversation 
by  touching,  pointing,  or  looking  towards  them,  either  to  indicate 
the  objects  themselves  or  one  of  their  characteristics.  Thus  if 
a  deaf-and-dumb  man  touches  his  underlip  with  his  forefinger, 
the  context  must  decide  whether  he  means  to  indicate  the  lip 
itself  or  the  colour  "red,"  unless,  as  is  sometimes  done,  he 
shows  by  actually  taking  hold  of  the  lip  with  finger  and  thumb, 
that  it  is  the  lip  itself,  and  not  its  quality,  that  he  means. 
Under  the  two  classes  "  pictures  in  the  air  "  and  things  brought 
before  the  mind  by  actual  pointing  out,  the  whole  of  the  sign- 
language  may  be  included. 

It  is  in  Deaf-and-Dumb  Institutions  that  the  gesture-language 
may  be  most  conveniently  studied,  and  what  slight  practical 
knowledge  I  have  of  it  has  been  got  in  this  way  in  Germany  and 
in  England.  In  these  institutions,  however,  there  are  gram- 
matical signs  used  in  the  gesture-language  which  do  not  fairly 
belong  to  it.  These  are  mostly  signs  adapted,  or  perhaps  in- 
vented, by  teachers  who  had  the  use  of  speech,  to  express  ideas 
which  do  not  come  within  the  scope  of  the  very  limited  natural 
grammar  and  dictionary  of  the  deaf-and-dumb.  But  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  though  the  deaf-and-dumb  have  been  taught  to 
understand  these  signs  and  use  them  in  school,  they  ignore  them 


THE   GESTURE- LANGUAGE.  17 

in  their  ordinary  talk,  and  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  them  if 
they  can  help  it. 

By  dint  of  instruction,  deaf-mutes  can  be  taught  to  commu- 
nicate their  thoughts,  and  to  learn  from  books  and  men  in 
nearly  the  same  Avay  as  we  do,  though  in  a  more  limited  degree. 
They  learn  to  read  and  write,  to  spell  out  sentences  with  the 
finger-alphabet,  and  to  Understand  words  so  spelt  by  others ;  and 
besides  this,  they  can  be  taught  to  speak  in  articulate  language, 
though  in  a  hoarse  and  unmodulated  voice,  and  when  another 
speaks,  to  follow  the  motions  of  his  lips  almost  as  though  they 
could  hear  the  words  uttered. 

It  may  be  remarked  here,  once  for  all,  that  the  general  public 
often  confuses  the  real  deaf-and-dumb  language  of  signs,  in 
which  objects  and  actions  are  expressed  by  pantomimic  gestures, 
with  the  deaf-and-dumb  finger-alphabet,  which  is  a  mere  sub- 
stitute for  alphabetic  writing.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  the 
two  things  are  distinct ;  they  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
one  another,  and  have  no  more  resemblance  than  a  picture  has 
to  a  written  description  of  it.  Though  of  little  scientific  interest, 
the  finger-alphabet  is  of  great  practical  use.  It  appears  to  have 
been  invented  in  Spain,  to  which  country  the  world  owes  the 
first  systematic  deaf-and-dumb-teaching,  by  Juan  Pablo  Bonet, 
in  whose  work  a  one-handed  alphabet  is  set  forth,  differing  but 
little  from  that  now  in  use  in  Germany,  or  perhaps  by  his  pre- 
decessor, Pedro  de  Ponce.  The  two-handed  or  French  alphabet, 
generally  used  in  England,  is  of  newer  date.1 

The  mother-tongue  (so  to  speak)  of  the  deaf-and-dumb  is  the 
language  of  signs.  The  evidence  of  the  best  observers  tends  to 
prove  that  they  are  capable  of  developing  the  gesture-language 
out  of  their  own  minds  without  the  aid  of  speaking  men.  Indeed, 
the  deaf-mutes  in  general  surpass  the  rest  of  the  world  in  their 
power  of  using  and  understanding  signs,  and  for  this  simple 
reason,  that  though  the  gesture-language  is  the  common 
property  of  all  mankind,  it  is  seldom  cultivated  and  developed 
to  so  high  a  degree  by  those  who  have  the  use  of  speech,  as  by 

1  Bonet,  'Reduction  de  las  Letras,  y  Arte  para  ensenar  a  ablar  Jos  Mudos ;'  Madrid, 
1620  ;  pp.  128,  etc.  Sclimalz,  '  Ueber  die  Taubstummen  ; '  Dresden  and  Leipzig, 
1848  ;  pp.  214,  352. 

0 


13  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

those  who  cannot  speak,  and  must  therefore  have  recourse  to 
other  means  of  communication.  The  opinions  of  two  or  three 
practical  observers  may  be  cited  to  show  that  the  gesture- 
language  is  not,  like  the  finger-alphabet,  an  art  learnt  in  the 
first  instance  from  the  teacher,  but  an  independent  process 
originating  in  the  mind  of  the  deaf-mute,  and  developing 
itself  as  his  knowledge  and  power  of  "reasoning  expand  under 
instruction. 

Samuel  Heinicke,  the  founder  of  deaf-and-dumb  teaching  in 
Germany,  remarks  : — "  He  (the  deaf-mute)  prefers  keeping  to 
his  pantomime,  which  is  simple  and  short,  and  comes  to  him 
fluently  as  a  mother-tongue."  1  Schmalz  says  : — "  Not  less 
comprehensible  are  many  signs  which  we  indeed  do  not  use  in 
ordinary  life,  but  which  the  deaf-and-dumb  child  uses,  having 
no  means  of  communicating  with  others  but  by  signs.  These 
signs  consist  principally  in  drawing  in  the  air  the  shape  of 
objects  to  be  suggested  to  the  mind,  indicating  their  character, 
imitating  the  movement  of  the  body  in  an  action  to  be  described, 
or  the  use  of  a  thing,  its  origin,  or  any  other  of  its  notable  pecu- 
liarities."2 "  With  regard  to  signs,"  says  Dr.  Scott,  of  Exeter, 
"  the  (deaf-and-dumb)  child  will  most  likely  have  already  fixed 
upon  signs  by  which  it  names  most  of  the  objects  given  in  the 
above  lesson  (pin,  key,  etc.),  and  which  it  uses  in  its  intercourse 
with  its  friends.  These  signs  had  always  better  be  retained  (by 
the  child's  family),  and  if  a  word  has  not  received  such  a  sign, 
endeavour  to  get  the  child  to  fix  upon  one.  It  will  do  this  rnoct 
probably  better  than  you."3 

The  Abbe  Sicard,  one  of  the  first  and  most  eminent  of  the 
men  who  have  devoted  their  lives  to  the  education  and  "human- 
izing "  of  these  afflicted  creatures,  has  much  the  same  account 
to  give.  "It  is  not  I,"  he  says,  "who  am  to  invent  these 
signs.  I  have  only  to  set  forth  the  theory  of  them  under  the 
dictation  of  their  true  inventors,  those  whose  language  consists 
of  these  signs.  It  is  for  the  deaf-and-dumb  to  make  them,  and 
for  me  to  tell  how  they  are  made.  They  must  be  drawn  from 
the  nature  of  the  objects  they  are  to  represent.  It  is  only  the 

1  Heinicke,  '  Beobachtungen  iiber  Stumme,'  etc.  ;  Hamburg,  1778,  p.  56. 

«  Schmalz,  p.  267.  *  Scott,  '  The  Deaf  and  Dumb  ; '  London,  1844,  p.  84. 


THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  19 

signs  given  by  the  mute  himself  to  express  the  actions  which  he 
witnesses,  and  the  objects  which  are  brought  before  him,  which 
can  replace  articulate  language."  Speaking  of  his  celebrated 
deaf-and-dumb  pupil,  Massieu,  he  says  : — "  Thus,  by  a  happy 
exchange,  as  I  taught  him  the  written  signs  of  our  language, 
Massieu  taught  me  the  mimic  signs  of  his."  "  So  it  must  be 
said  that  it  is  neither  I  nor  my  admirable  master  (the  Abbe  de 
1'Epee)  who  are  the  inventors  of  the  deaf-and-dumb  language. 
And  as  a  foreigner  is  not  fit  to  teach  a  Frenchman  French,  so 
the  speaking  man  has  no  business  to -meddle  with  the  invention 
of  signs,  giving  them  abstract  values."1  All  these  are  modern 
statements  ;  but  long  before  the  days  of  Deaf-and-Dumb  Institu- 
tions, Rabelais'  sharp  eye  had  noticed  how  natural  and  appro- 
priate were  the  untaught  signs  made  by  born  deaf-mutes.  When 
Panurge  is  going  to  try  by  divination  from  signs  what  his 
fortune  will  be  in  married  life,  Pantagruel  thus  counsels  him  : — 
"  Pourtant,  vous  fault  choisir  ung  mut  sourd  de  nature,  affin 
que  ses  gestes  vous  soyent  naifuement  propheticques,  non  fainctz, 
fardez,  ne  affectez." 

Xor  are  we  obliged  to  depend  upon  the  observations  ot  ordi- 
nary speaking  men  for  our  knowledge  of  the  way  in  which  the 
gesture-language  develops  itself  in  the  mind  of  the  deaf-and- 
dumb.  The  educated  deaf-mutes  can  tell  us  from  their  own 
experience  how  gesture-signs  originate.  The  following  account 
is  given  by  Kruse,  a  deaf-mute  himself,  and  a  well-known 
teacher  of  deaf  mutes,  and  author  of  several  works  of  no  small 
ability  : — "  Thus  the  deaf-and-dumb  must  have  a  language, 
without  which  no  thought  can  be  brought  to  pass.  But  here 
nature  soon  comes  to  his  help.  What  strikes  him  most,  or 
what  .  .  .  makes  a  distinction  to  him  between  one  thing  and 
another,  such  distinctive  signs  of  objects  are  at  once  signs  by 
which  he  knows  these  objects,  and  knows  them  again ;  they 
become  tokens  of  things.  And  whilst  he  silently  elaborates 
the  signs  he  has  found  for  single  objects,  that  is,  whilst  he 
describes  their  forms  for  himself  in  the  air,  or  imitates  them 
in  thought  with  hands,  fingers,  and  gestures,  he  developes  for 
himself  suitable  signs  to  represent  ideas,  which  serve  him  as  a 

1  Sicard.  '  Cours  d'Instruction  d'un  Sourd-muet ; '  Paris,  1803,  pp.  xlv.  18. 

c  2 


20  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

means  of  fixing  ideas  of  different  kinds  in  his  mind  and  re- 
calling them  to  his  memory.  And  thus  he  makes  himself  a 
language,  the  so-called  gesture-language  (Geberdcn-spmche) ;  and 
with  these  few  scanty  and  imperfect  signs,  a  way  for  thought  is 
already  broken,  and  with  his  thought  as  it  now  opens  out,  the 
language  cultivates  and  forms  itself  further  and  further."  ] 

I  will  now  give  some  account  of  the  particular  dialect  (so  to 
speak)  of  the  gesture-language,  which  is  current  in  the  Berlin 
Deaf-and-Dumb  Institution.2  I  made  a  list  of  about  500  signs, 
taking  them  down  from  my  teacher,  Carl  "SVilke,  who  is  himself 
deaf-and-dumb.  They  talk  of  5000  signs  being  in  common  use 
there,  but  my  list  contains  the  most  important.  First,  as  to 
the  signs  themselves,  the  following,  taken  at  random,  will  give 
an  idea  of  the  general  principle  on  which  all  are  formed. 

To  express  the  pronouns  "  I,  thou,  he,"  I  push  my  forefinger 
against  the  pit  of  my  stomach  for  "  I ; "  push  it  towards  the 
person  addressed  for  "  thou  ;  "  point  with  my  thumb  over  my 
right  shoulder  for  "he ;  "  and  so  on. 

When  I  hold  my  right  hand  flat  with  the  palm  down,  at  the 
level  of  my  waist,  and  raise  it  towards  the  level  of  my  shoulder, 
that  signifies  "great;"  but  if  I  depress  it  instead,  it  means 
"  little." 

The  sign  for  "  man  "  is  the  motion  of  taking  off  the  hat ;  for 
"woman,"  the  closed  hand  is  laid  upon  the  breast;  for  "  child," 
the  right  elbow  is  dandled  upon  the  left  hand. 

The  adverb  "  hither  "  and  the  verb  "  to  come  "  have  the  same 
sign,  beckoning  with  the  finger  towards  oneself. 

To  hold  the  first  two  fingers  apart,  like  a  letter  V,  and  dart 
the  finger  tips  out  from  the  eyes,  is  to  "see."  To  touch  the 
ear  and  tongue  with' the  fore-finger,  is  to  "hear"  and  to 
"taste."  Whatever  is  to  be  pointed  out,  the  fore-finger,  so 
appropriately  called  "index,"  has  to  point  out  or  indicate. 

1  Kruse,  'Ueber  Tanbstnmmen,'  etc.  ;  Schleswig,  1853,  p.  51. 

*  Whether  the  "dialects"  of  the  different  deaf-and-dumb  institutions  have  re- 
ceived any  considerable  proportion  of  natural  signs  from  one  another,  as,  for  instance, 
by  the  spreading  of  the  system  of  teaching  from  Paris,  I  am  unable  to  say  ;  but  there 
is  so  much  in  each  that  differs  from  the  others  in  detail,  though  not  in  principle,  that 
they  may,  I  think,  be  held  as  practically  independent,  except  as  regards  grammatical 
sign*. 


THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  21 

"...  atque  ipsa  videtur 
Protrahere  ad  gestum  pueros  infantia  linguae 
Quom  facit  ut  digito  quae  sint  prassentia  monstrent." ' 

To  "  speak"  is  to  move  the  lips  as  in  speaking  (all  the  deaf- 
and-dumb  are  taught  to  speak  in  articulate  words  in  the  Berlin 
establishment),  and  to  move  the  lips  thus,  while  pointing  with 
the  fore-finger  out  from  the  mouth,  is  "name,"  or  "to  name," 
as  though  one  should  define  it  to  "  point  out  by  speaking." 

The  outline  of  the  shape  of  roof  and  walls  done  in  the  air  with 
two  hands  is  "  house ;  "  with  a  flat  roof  it  is  "  room.  To  smell 
as  at  a  flower,  and  then  with  the  two  hands  make  a  horizontal 
circle  before  one,  is  "  garden." 

To  pull  up  a  pinch  of  flesh  from  the  back  of  one's  hand  is 
"flesh"  or  "meat."  Make  the  steam  curling  up  from  it  with 
the  fore-finger,  and  it  becomes  "  roast  meat."  Make  a  bird's 
bill  with  two  fingers  in  front  of  one's  lips  and  flap  with  the 
arms,  and  that  means  "  goose ; "  put  the  first  sign  and  these 
together,  and  we  have  "  roast  goose." 

How  natural  all  these  imitative  signs  are.  They  want  no 
elaborate  explanation.  To  seize  the  most  striking  outline  of 
an  object,  the  principal  movement  of  an  action,  is  the  whole 
secret,  and  this  is  what  the  rudest  savage  can  do  untaught, 
nay,  what  is  more,  can  do  better  and  more  easily  than  the  edu- 
cated man.  "  None  of  my  teachers  here  who  can  speak,"  said 
the  Director  of  the  Institution,  "  are  very  strong  in  the  gesture- 
language.  It  is  difficult  for  an  educated  speaking  man  to  get 
the  proficiency  in  it  which  a  deaf-and-dumb  child  attains  to 
almost  without  an  effort.  It  is  true  that  I  can  use  it  perfectly ; 
but  I  have  been  here  forty  years,  and  I  made  it  my  business 
from  the  first  to  become  thoroughly  master  of  it.  To  be  able 
to  speak  is  an  impediment,  not  an  assistance,  in  acquiring  the 
gesture-language.  The  habit  of  thinking  in  words,  and  trans- 
lating these  words  into  signs,  is  most  difficult  to  shake  off;  but 
until  this  is  done,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  place  the  signs  in  the 
logical  sequence  in  which  they  arrange  themselves  in  the  mind 
of  the  deaf-mute." 

As  new  things  come  under  the  notice  of  the  deaf-and-dumb, 

1  Lucretius,  v.  1029. 


22  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

oi  course  new  signs  immediately  come  up  for  them.  So  to 
express  "railway"  and  "locomotive,"  the  left  hand  makes  a 
chimney,  and  the  steam  curling  almost  horizontally  out  is  imi- 
tated with  the  right  fore-finger.  The  tips  of  the  fingers  of  the 
half-closed  hand  coming  towards  one  like  rays  of  light,  is  "  pho- 
tograph." 

But  the  casual  observer,  who  should  take  down  every  sign 
he  saw  used  in  class  by  masters  and  pupils,  as  belonging  to  the 
natural  gesture-language,  would  often  get  a  very  wrong  idea  of 
its  nature.  Teachers  of  the  deaf-and-dumb  have  thought  it 
advisable  for  practical  purposes,  not  merely  to  use  the  inde- 
pendent development  of  the  language  of  signs,  but  to  add  to  it 
and  patch  it  so  as  to  make  it  more  strictly  equivalent  to  their 
own  speech  and  writing.  For  this  purpose  signs  have  to  be 
introduced  for  many  words,  of  which  the  pupil  mostly  learns  the 
meaning  through  their  use  in  writing,  and  is  taught  to  use  the 
sign  where  he  would  use  the  word.  Thus,  the  clenched  fists, 
pushed  forward  with  the  thumbs  up,  mean  "yet."  To  throw 
the  fingers  gently  open  from  the  temple  means  "when."  To 
move  the  closed  hands  with  the  thumbs  out,  up  and  down  upon 
one's  waistcoat,  is  to  "be."  All  these  signs  may,  it  is  true,  be 
based  upon  natural  gestures.  Dr.  Scott,  for  instance,  explains 
the  sign  "when"  as  formed  in  this  way.  But  this  kind  of 
derivation  does  not  give  them  a  claim  to  be  included  in  the  pure 
gesture-language;  and  it  really  does  not  seem  as  though  it  would 
make  much  difference  to  the  children  if  the  sign  for  "when" 
were  used  for  "  yet,"  and  so  on. 

The  Abbe  Sicard  has  left  us  a  voluminous  account  of  the  sign- 
language  he  used,  which  may  serve  as  an  example  of  the  curious 
hybrid  systems  which  grow  up  in  this  way,  by  the  grafting  of 
the  English,  or  French,  or  German  grammar  and  dictionary  on 
the  gesture-language.  Sicard  was  strongly  impressed  with  the 
necessity  of  using  the  natural  signs,  and  even  his  most  arbitrary 
ones  may  have  been  based  on  such ;  but  he  had  set  himself  to 
make  gestures  do  whatever  words  can  do,  and  was  thereby  often 
driven  to  strange  shifts.  Yet  he  either  drew  so  directly  from 
his  deaf-and-dumb  scholars,  or  succeeded  so  well  in  learning  to 
think  in  their  way,  that  it  is  often  very  hard  to  say  exactly 


THE   GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  23 

where  the  influence  of  spoken  or  written  language  comes  in. 
For  instance,  the  deaf-mute  borrows  the  signs  of  space,  as  we  do 
similar  words,  to  express  notions  of  time;  and  Sicard,  keeping 
to  these  real  signs,  and  only  using  them  with  a  degree  of  analysis 
which  has  hardly  been  attained  to  but  by  means  of  words,  makes 
the  present  tense  of  his  verb  by  indicating  "  here  "  with  the  two 
hands  held  out,  palm  downward,  the  past  tense  by  the  hand 
thrown  back  over  the  shoulder,  "behind,"  the  future  by  putting 
the  hand  out,  "forward."  But  when  he  takes  on  his  conjugation 
to  such  tenses  as  "I  should  have  carried,"  he  is  merely  trans- 
lating words  into  more  or  less  appropriate  signs.  Again,  by  the 
aid  of  two  fore-fingers  hooked  together, — to  express,  I  suppose, 
the  notion  of  dependence  or  connection, — he  distinguishes  be- 
tween moi  and  me,  and  by  translating  two  abstract  grammatical 
terms  from  words  into  signs,  he  introduces  another  conception 
quite  foreign  to  the  pure  gesture-language.  If  something  that 
has  been  signed  is  a  substantive,  he  puts  the  right  hand  under 
the  left,  to  show  that  it  is  that  which  stands  underneath;  while 
if  it  is  an  adjective,  he  puts  the  right  hand  on  the  top,  to  show 
that  it  is  the  quality  which  lies  upon  or  is  added  to  the  sub- 
stantive below.1 

These  partly  artificial  systems  are  probably  very  useful  in 
teaching,  but  they  are  not  the  real  gesture-language,  and  what  is 
more,  the  foreign  element  so  laboriously  introduced  seems  to 
have  little  power  of  holding  its  ground  there.  So  far  as  I  can 
learn,  few  or  none  of  the  factitious  grammatical  signs  will  bear 
even  the  short  journey  from  the  schoolroom  to  the  playground, 
where  there  is  no  longer  any  verb  "  to  be,"  where  the  abstract 
conjunctions  are  unknown,  and  where  mere  position,  quality, 
action,  may  serve  to  describe  substantive  and  adjective  alike. 

At  Berlin,  as  in  all  deaf-and-dumb  institutions,  there  are 
numbers  of  signs  which,  though  most  natural  in  their  character, 
would  not  be  understood  beyond  the  limits  of  the  circle  in  which 
they  are  used.  These  are  signs  which  indicate  an  object  by 
some  accidental  peculiarity,  and  are  rather  epithets  than  names. 
My  deaf-and-dumb  teacher,  for  instance,  was  named  among  the 

Sicard,  'The'orie  des  Signes  pour  1'Instruction  des  Sourds-muets  ; '  Paris,  1808, 
vol.  ii.  p.  562,  etc.  A  really  possible  distinction  appears  in  "  lip,''  "red,"  ante,  p.  16. 


24  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

children  by  the  action  of  cutting  off  the  left  arm  with  the  edge 
of  the  right  hand ;  the  reason  of  this  sign  was,  not  that  there 
was  anything  peculiar  ahout  his  arms,  but  that  he  came  from 
Spandau,  and  it  so  happened  that  one  of  the  children  had  been 
at  Spandau,  and  had  seen  there  a  man  with  one  arm  ;  thence 
this  epithet  of  "one-armed"  came  to  be  applied  to  all  Spandauers, 
and  to  this  one  in  particular.  Again  the  Royal  residence  of 
Charlottenburg  was  named  by  taking  up  one's  left  knee  and 
nursing  it,  in  allusion  apparently  to  the  late  king  having  been 
laid  up  with  the  gout  there. 

In  like  manner,  the  children  preferred  to  indicate  foreign 
countries  by  some  characteristic  epithet,  to  spelling  out  their 
names  on  their  fingers.  Thus  England  and  Englishmen  were 
aptly  alluded  to  by  the  action  of  rowing  a  boat,  while  the  signs 
of  chopping  off  a  head  and  strangling  were  used  to  describe 
France  and  Russia,  in  allusion  to  the  deaths  of  Louis  XVI.  and 
the  Emperor  Paul,  events  which  seem  to  have  struck  the  deaf- 
and-dumb  children  as  the  most  remarkable  in  the  history  of  the 
two  countries.  These  signs  are  of  much  higher  interest  than 
the  grammatical  symbols,  which  can  only  be  kept  in  use,  so  to 
speak,  by  main  force,  but  these,  too,  never  penetrate  into  the 
general  body  of  the  language,  and  are  not  even  permanent  in  the 
place  where  they  arise.  They  die  out  from  one  set  of  children 
to  another,  and  new  ones  come  up  in  their  stead. 

The  gesture-language  has  no  grammar,  properly  so  called ;  it 
knows  no  inflections  of  any  kind,  any  more  than  the  Chinese. 
The  same  sign  stands  for  "walk,"  "walkest,"  "walking," 
"walked,"  "walker."  Adjectives  and  verbs  are  not  easily 
distinguished  by  the  deaf-and-dumb;  "horse-black-handsome- 
trot-canter,"  would  be  the  rough  translation  of  the  signs  by 
which  a  deaf-mute  would  state  that  a  handsome  black  horse  trots 
and  canters.  Indeed,  our  elaborate  systems  of  "  parts  of 
speech "  are  but  little  applicable  to  the  gesture-language, 
though,  as  will  be  more  fully  said  in  another  chapter,  it  may 
perhaps  be  possible  to  trace  in  spoken  language  a  Dualism,  in 
some  measure  resembling  that  of  the  gesture-language,  with  its 
two  constituent  parts,  the  bringing  forward  objects  and  actions 
in  actual  fact,  and  the  mere  suggestion  of  them  by  imitation. 


THE   GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  25 

It  has  however  a  syntax,  which  is  worthy  of  careful  examina- 
tion. The  syntax  of  speaking  man  differs  according  to  the  lan- 
guage he  may  learn,  "equus  niger,"  "  a  hlack  horse; "  "hominem 
amo,"  "j'aime  1'homme."  But  the  deaf-mute  strings  together 
the  signs  of  the  various  ideas  he  wishes  to  connect,  in  what 
appears  to  be  the  natural  order  in  which  they  follow  one  another 
in  his  mind,  for  it  is  the  same  among  the  mutes  of  different 
countries,  and  is  wholly  independent  of  the  syntax  which  may 
happen  to  belong  to  the  language  of  their  speaking  friends.  For 
instance,  their  usual  construction  is  not  "  black  horse,"  but 
"horse  black;"  not  "bring  a  black  hat,"  but  "hat  black  bring;" 
not  "lam  hungry,  give  me  bread,"  but  "hungry  me  bread  give." 
The  essential  independence  of  the  gesture-language  may  indeed 
be  brought  very  clearly  into  view,  by  noticing  that  ordinary  edu- 
cated men,  when  they  first  begin  to  learn  the  language  of  signs, 
do  not  come  naturally  to  the  use  of  its  proper  syntax,  but,  by 
arranging  their  gestures  in  the  order  of  the  words  they  think  in, 
make  sentences  which  are  unmeaning  or  misleading  to  a  deaf- 
mute,  unless  he  can  reverse  the  process,  by  translating  the  ges- 
tures into  words,  and  considering  what  such  a  written  sentence 
would  mean.  Going  once  into  a  deaf-and-dumb  school,  and  set- 
ting a  boy  to  write  words  on  the  black  board,  I  drew  in  the  air 
the  outline  of  a  tent,  and  touched  the  inner  part  of  my  under-lip 
to  indicate  "  red,"  and  the  boy  wrote  accordingly  "  a  red  tent." 
The  teacher  remarked  that  I  did  not  seem  to  be  quite  a  beginner 
in  the  sign-language,  or  I  should  have  translated  my  English 
thought  verbatim,  and  put  the  "  red  "  first. 

The  fundamental  principle  which  regulates  the  order  of  the 
deaf-mute's  signs  seems  to  be  that  enunciated  by  Schmalz,  "  that 
which  seems  to  him  the  most  important  he  always  sets  before 
the  rest,  and  that  which  seems  to  him  superfluous  he  leaves  out. 
For  instance,  to  say,  '  My  father  gave  me  an  apple,'  he  makes 
the  sign  for  '  apple,'  then  that  for  *  father,'  and  that  for  '  I,' 
without  adding  that  for  '  give.'  " *  The  following  remarks,  sent 
to  me  by  Dr.  Scott,  seem  to  agree  with  this  view.  "With  regard 
to  the  t\>o  sentences  you  give  (I  struck  Tom  with  a  stick,  Tom 
Btruck  me  with  a  stick),  the  sequence  in  the  introduction  of  the 

Schmalz,  p.  274. 


26  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

particular  parts  would,  in  some  measure,  depend  on  the  part  that 
most  attention  was  wished  to  be  drawn  towards.  If  a  mere 
telling  of  the  fact  was  required,  my  opinion  is  that  it  would  be 
arranged  so,  '  I-Tom-struck-a-stick,'  and  the  passive  form  in  a 
similar  manner,  with  the  change  of  Tom  first.  But  these  sen- 
tences are  not  generally  said  by  the  deaf-and-dumb  without  their 
having  been  interested  in  the  fact,  and  then,  in  coming  to  tell  of 
them,  they  first  give  that  part  they  are  most  anxious  to  impress 
upon  their  hearer.  Thus  if  a  boy  had  struck  another  boy,  and 
the  injured  party  came  to  tell  us  ;  if  he  was  desirous  to  impress 
us  with  the  idea  that  a  particular  boy  did  it,  he  would  point  to 
the  boy  first.  But  if  he  was  anxious  to  draw  attention  to  his 
own  suffering,  rather  than  to  the  person  by  whom  it  was  caused, 
he  would  point  to  himself  and  make  the  sign  of  striking,  and 
then  point  to  the  boy ;  or  if  he  was  wishful  to  draw  attention  to 
the  cause  of  his  suffering,  he  might  sign  the  striking  first,  and 
then  tell  afterwards  by  whom  it  was  done." 

Dr.  Scott  has  attempted  to  lay  down  a  set  of  distinct  rules  for 
the  syntax  of  the  gesture-language.1  "  The  subject  comes  before 
the  attribute,  .  .  .  the  object  before  the  action."  A  third  con- 
struction is  common,  though  not  necessary,  "  the  modifier  after 
the  modified."  The  first  rule,  as  exemplified  in  "horse  black," 
enables  the  deaf-mute  to  make  his  syntax  supply,  to  some  extent, 
the  distinction  between  adjective  and  substantive,  which  his 
imitative  signs  do  not  themselves  express.  The  other  two  are 
illustrated  by  a  remark  of  the  Abbe  Sicard's.  "  A  pupil,  to 
whom  I  one  day  put  this  question,  '  Who  made  God  ?  '  and  who 
replied,  '  God  made  nothing,'  left  me  in  no  doubt  as  to  this  kind 
of  inversion,  usual  to  the  deaf-and-dumb,  when  I  went  on  to  ask 
him,  '  Who  made  the  shoe  ?  '  and  he  answered,  '  The  shoe  made 
the  shoemaker.'  "2  So  when  Laura  Bridgman,  who  was  blind 
as  well  as  deaf-and-dumb,  had  learnt  to  communicate  ideas  by 
spelling  words  on  her  fingers,  she  would  say  "  Shut  door,"  "Give 
book  ;  "  no  doubt  because  she  had  learnt  these  sentences  whole  ; 
but  when  she  made  sentences  for  herself,  she  would  go  back  to 
the  natural  deaf-and-dumb  syntax,  and  spell  out  "Laura  bread 
give, "to  ask  for  bread  to  be  given  her,  and  "water  drink  Laura," 

1  Scott,  'The  Deaf  and  Dumb,'  p.  53.  3  Sicard,  '  Theorie,'  p.  xxviiL 


THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  27 

to  express  that  she  wanted  to  drink  water.1  It  is  to  be  observed 
that  there  is  one  important  part  of  construction  which  Dr.  Scott's 
rules  do  not  touch,  namely,  the  relative  position  of  the  actor  and 
the  action,  the  nominative  case  and  the  verb.  Dr.  Schinalz 
attempts  to  lay  down  a  partial  rule  for  this.  "  If  the  deaf-mute 
connects  the  sign  for  an  action  with  that  for  a  person,  to  say  that 
the  person  did  this  or  that,  he  places,  as  a  general  rule,  the  sign 
of  the  action  before  that  of  the  person.  For  example,  to  say,  '  I 
knitted,'  he  moves  his  hands  as  in  knitting,  and  then  points  with 
his  fore-finger  to  his  breast."5  Thus,  too,  Heinicke  remarks 
that  to  say,  "  The  carpenter  struck  me  on  the  arm,"  he  would 
strike  himself  on  the  arm,  and  then  make  the  sign  of  planing,3 
as  if  to  say,  "  I  was  struck  on  the  arm,  the  planing-man  did  it." 
But  though  these  constructions  are,  no  doubt,  right  enough  as 
they  stand,  the  rule  of  precedence  according  to  importance  often 
reverses  them.  If  the  deaf-mute  wished  to  throw  the  emphasis 
nm  upon  the  knitting,  but  upon  himself,  he  would  probably  point 
to  himself  first.  Kruse  gives  the  construction  of  "The  ship  sails 
on  the  water  "  like  our  own  "  ship  sail  water ; "  and  of  "  I  must 
go  to  bed,"  as  "I  bed  go."4 

A  look  of  inquiry  converts  an  assertion  into  a  question,  and 
fully  serves  to  make  the  difference  between  "  The  master  is 
come,"  and  "  Is  the  master  come  ?  "  The  interrogative  pro- 
louns,  "who?"  "what?"  are  made  by  looking  or  pointing 
ibout  in  an  inquiring  manner ;  in  fact,  by  a  number  of  unsuc- 

1  '  Account  of  Laura  Bridgman  ; '  London,  1845,  p.  26.    A  similar  instance,  p.  157, 
Jacket  Oliver  give  mother." 

2  Schmalz,  pp.  274,  58.  3  Heinicke,  p.  56. 

4  Kruse,  p.  57.  On  consulting  Mr.  E.  H.  Hebden  of  Scarborough,  a  highly- 
ucated  deaf-and-dumb  gentleman,  I  find  him  to  disagree  with  Sicard  and  Schmalz 
to  the  natural  order  of  actor  and  action.  Mr.  Hebden's  order  is,  1,  object ;  2, 
bject  ;  3,  action,  illustrating  it  by  the  gestures  "door  key  open"  to  express  "the 
key  opens  the  door,"  and  "  mouse  cat  kill,"  to  express  "  cats  kill  mice."  This  in  no 
way  contradicts  Dr.  Scott's  rules.  In  these  questions  as  to  order  of  signs,  it  must 
always  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  intelligibility  of  a  gesture-sentence  (so  to  speak) 
depends  on  the  whole  forming  a  dramatic  picture,  while  this  dramatic  effect  is  very 
imperfectly  represented  by  translating  signs  into  words  and  placing  these  one  after 
another.  Thus  when  Mr.  Hebden  expressed  in  gestures,  "I  found  a  pipe  on  th« 
road,"  the  order  of  the  signs  was  written  down  as  "road  pipe  I-find,"  which  does  not 
Beem  a  clear  construction,  but  what  the  gestures  actually  expressed  went  far  beyond 
this,  for  he  made  the  spectator  realize  him  as  walking  along  the  road  and  suddenly 
catching  sight  of  a  pipe  lying  on  the  ground. — [Xote  to  3rd  Edition.] 


28  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

cessful  attempts  to  say,  "  he,"  "  that."  The  deaf-and-dumb 
child's  way  of  asking,  "Who  has  beaten  you?"  would  be, 
"You  beaten;  who  was  it?"  Though  it  is  possible  to  render 
a  great  mass  of  simple  statements  or  questions,  almost  gesture 
for  word,  the  concretism  of  thought  which  belongs  to  the  deaf- 
mute  whose  mind  has  not  been  much  developed  by  the  use  of 
written  language,  and  even  to  the  educated  one  when  he  is 
thinking  and  uttering  his  thoughts  in  his  native  signs,  com- 
monly requires  more  complex  phrases  to  be  re-cast.  A  ques- 
tion so  common  amongst  us  as,  "  What  is  the  matter  with 
you  ?  "  would  be  put,  "  You  crying  ?  you  been  beaten  ?  "  and  so 
on.  The  deaf-and-dumb 'child  does  not  ask,  "  What  did  you 
have  for  dinner  yesterday  ?  "  but  "  Did  you  have  soup  ?  did  you 
have  porridge  ?  "  and  so  forth.  A  conjunctive  sentence  he  ex- 
presses by  an  alternative  or  contrast ;  "  I  should  be  punished 
if  I  were  lazy  and  naughty,"  would  be  put,  "  I  lazy,  naughty, 
no ! — lazy,  naughty,  I  punished,  yes !  "  Obligation  may  be 
expressed  in  a  similar  way ;  "I  must  love  and  honour  my 
teacher,"  maybe  put,  "teacher,  I  beat,  deceive,  scold,  no  ! — I 
love,  honour,  yes  ! "  As  Steinthal  says  in  his  admirable  essay, 
it  is  only  the  certainty  which  speech  gives  to  a  man's  mind  in 
holding  fast  ideas  in  all  their  relations,  which  brings  him  to  the 
shorter  course  of  expressing  only  the  positive  side  of  the  idea, 
and  dropping  the  negative.1 

What  is  expressed  by  the  genitive  case,  or  a  corresponding 
preposition,  may  have  a  distinct  sign  of  holding  in  the  gesture- 
language.  The  three  signs  to  express  "the  gardener's  knife," 
might  be  the  knife,  the  garden,  and  the  action  of  grasping  the 
knife,  pressing  it  to  his  breast,  putting  it  into  his  pocket,  or 
something  of  the  kind.  But  the  mere  putting  together  of  the 
possessor  and  the  possessed  may  answer  the  purpose,  as  is  well 
shown  by  the  way  in  which  a  deaf-and-dumb  man  designates 
his  wife's  daughter's  husband  and  children  in  making  his  will 
by  signs.  The  following  account  is  taken  from  the  "Justice  of 
the  Peace,"  October  1,  1864  :— 

John  Geale,  of  Yateley,  yeoman,  deaf,  dumb,  and  unable  to 
read  or  write,  died  leaving  a  will  which  he  had  executed  by 
1  Kruse,  p.  56,  etc.  Steinthal,  '  Spr.  der  T.,'  p.  923. 


THE  GESTURE  LANGUAGE.  29 

putting  his  mark  to  it.  Probate  of  this  will  was  refused  by 
Sir  J.  P.  Wilde,  Judge  of  the  Court  of  Probate,  on  the  ground 
that  there  was  no  sufficient  evidence  of  the  testator's  under- 
standing and  assenting  to  its  provisions.  At  a  later  date,  Dr. 
Spinks  renewed  the  motion  upon  the  following  joint  affidavit  of 
the  widow  and  the  attesting  witnesses  : — "  The  signs  by  which 
deceased  informed  us  that  the  will  was  the  instrument  which 
was  to  deal  with  his  property  upon  his  death,  and  that  his  wife 
was  to  have  all  his  property  after  his  death  in  case  she  survived 
him,  were  in  substance,  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  describe  the 
same  in  writing,  as  follows,  viz.  : — The  said  John  Geale  first 
pointed  to  the  said  will  itself,  then  he  pointed  to  himself,  and 
then  he  laid  the  side  of  his  head  upon  the  palm  of  his  right 
hand  with  his  eyes  closed,  and  then  lowered  his  right  hand 
towards  the  ground,  the  palm  of  the  same  hand  being  upwards. 
These  latter  signs  were  the  usual  signs  by  which  he  referred 
to  his  own  death  or  the  decease  of  some  one  else.  He  then 
touched  his  trousers  pocket  (which  was  the  usual  sign  by  which 
he  referred  to  his  money),  then  he  looked  all  round  and  simul- 
taneously raised  his  arms  with  a  sweeping  motion  all  round 
(which  were  the  usual  signs  by  which  he  referred  to  all  his 
property  or  all  things).  He  then  pointed  to  his  wife,  and 
afterwards  touched  the  ring-finger  of  his  left  hand,  and  then 
placed  his  right  hand  across  his  left  arm  at  the  elbow,  which 
latter  signs  were  the  usual  signs  by  which  he  referred  to  his 
wife.  The  signs  by  which  the  said  testator  informed  us  that 
his  property  was  to  go  to  his  wife's  daughter,  in  case  his  wife 
died  in  his  lifetime,  were  ...  as  follows  : — He  first  referred  to 
his  property  as  before,  he  then  touched  himself,  and  pointed  to 
the  ring-finger  of  his  left  hand,  and  crossed  his  arm  as  before 
(which  indicated  his  wife) ;  he  then  laid  the  side  of  his  head  on 
the  palm  of  his  right  hand  (with  his  eyes  closed),  which  indi- 
cated his  wife's  death;  he  then  again,  after  pointing  to  his 
wife's  daughter,  who  was  present  when  the  said  will  was  exe- 
cuted, pointed  to  the  ring-finger  of  his  left  hand,  and  then 
placed  his  right  hand  across  his  left  arm  at  the  elbow  as  before. 
He  then  put  his  forefinger  to  his  mouth,  and  immediately  touched 
his  breast,  and  moved  his  arms  in  such  a  manner  as  to  indicate 


30  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

a  child,  which  were  his  usual  signs  for  indicating  his  wife's 
daughter.  He  always  indicated  a  female  hy  crossing  his  sir  in, 
and  a  male  person  by  crossing  his  wrist.  The  signs  by  which 
the  said  testator  informed  us  that  his  property  was  to  go  to 
William  Wigg  (his  wife's  daughter's  husband),  in  case  his 
wife's  daughter  died  hi  his  lifetime,  were  ...  as  follows  : — He 
repeated  the  signs  indicating  his  property  and  his  wife's  daughter, 
then  laid  the  side  of  his  head  on  the  palm  of  his  right  hand 
with  his  eyes  closed,  and  lowered  his  hand  towards  the  ground 
as  before  (which  meant  her  death) ;  he  then  again  repeated  the 
signs  indicating  his  wife's  daughter,  and  crossed  his  left  arm 
at  the  wrist  with  his  right  hand,  which  meant  her  husband,  the 
said  William  Wigg.  He  also  communicated  to  us  by  signs, 
that  the  said  William  Wigg  resided  in  London.  The  said 
William  Wigg  is  in  the  employ  of  and  superintends  the  goods 
department  of  the  North- Western  Railway  Company  at  Camden 
Town.  The  signs  by  which  the  said  testator  informed  us  that 
his  property  was  to  go  to  the  children  of  his  wife's  daughter 
and  son-in-law,  in  case  they  both  died  in  his  lifetime,  were  .  .  . 
as  follows,  namely  : — He  repeated  the  signs  indicating  the  said 
William  Wigg  and  his  wife,  and  their  death  before  him,  and 
then  placed  his  right  hand  open  a  short  distance  from  the 
ground,  and  raised  it  by  degrees,  and  as  if  by  steps,  which  were 
his  usual  signs  for  pointing  out  their  children,  and  then  swept 
his  hand  round  with  a  sweeping  motion,  which  indicated  that 
they  were  all  to  be  brought  in.  The  said  testator  always  took 
great  notice  of  the  said  children,  and  was  very  fond  of  them. 
After  the  testator  had  in  manner  aforesaid  expressed  to  us  what 
he  intended  to  do  by  his  said  will,  the  said  E.  T.  Dunning,  by 
means  of  the  before-mentioned  signs,  and  by  other  motions  and 
signs  by  which  we  were  accustomed  to  converse  with  him,  in- 
formed the  said  testator  what  were  the  contents  and  effect  of  the 
said  will." 

Sir  J.  P.  Wilde  granted  the  motion. 

The  deaf-mute  commonly  expresses  past  and  future  time  in  a 
concrete  form,  or  by  implication.  To  say  "  I  have  been  ill," 
he  may  convey  the  idea  of  his  being  ill  by  looking  as  though 
he  were  so,  pressing  in  his  cheeks  with  thumb  and  finger  to 


THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  31 

give  himself  a  lantern-jawed  look,  putting  his  hand  to  his  head, 
etc.,  and  he  may  show  that  this  event  was  "  a  day  hehind,"  "a 
week  behind,"  that  is  to  say  yesterday  or  a  week  ago,  and  so 
he  may  say  that  he  is  going  home  "  a  week  forward."  That 
he  would  of  himself  make  the  abstract  past  or  future,  as  the 
Abbe  Sicard  has  it,  by  throwing  the  hand  back  or  forward,  with- 
out specifying  any  particular  period,  I  am  not  prepared  to 
say.  The  difficulty  may  be  avoided  by  signing  "  my  brother 
sick  done  "  for  "  my  brother  has  been  sick,"  as  to  imply  that 
the  sickness  is  a  thing  finished  and  done  with.  Or  the  ex- 
pression of  face  and  gesture  may  often  tell  what  is  meant. 
The  expression  with  which  the  sign  for  eating  dinner  is  made 
will  tell  whether  the  speaker  has  had  his  dinner  or  is  going  to 
it.  When  anything  pleasant  or  painful  is  mentioned  by  signs, 
the  look  will  commonly  convey  the  distinction  between  remem- 
brance of  what  is  past,  and  anticipation  of  what  is  to  come.' 

Though  the  deaf  and-clumb  has,  much  as  we  have,  an  idea  of 
the  connexion  of  cause  and  eifect,  he  has  not,  I  think,  any  direct 
means  of  distinguishing  causation  from  mere  sequence  or  simul- 
taneity, except  a  way  of  showing  by  his  manner  that  two  events 
belong  to  one  another,  which  can  hardly  be  described  in  words, 
though  if  he  sees  further  explanation  necessary,  he  has  no 
difficulty  in  giving  it.  Thus  he  would  express  the  statement 
that  a  man  died  of  drinking,  by  saying  that  he  "died,  drank, 
drank,  drank."  If  the  inquiry  were  made,  "died,  did  he?"  he 
could  put  the  causation  beyond  doubt  by  answering,  "  yes,  he 
drank,  and  drank,  and  drank  !  "  If  he  wished  to  say  that  the 
gardener  had  poisoned  himself,  the  order  of  his  signs  would  be, 
"  gardener  dead,  medicine  bad  drank." 

To  "make"  is  too  abstract  an  idea  for  the  deaf-mute;  to 
show  that  the  tailor  makes  the  coat,  or  that  the  carpenter 
makes  the  table,  he  would  represent  the  tailor  sewing  the  coat, 
and  the  carpenter  sawing  and  planing  the  table.  Such  a  pro- 
position as  "  Rain  makes  the  land  fruitful "  would  not  come  into 
his  way  of  thinking ;  "  rain  falls,  plants  grow,"  would  be  his 
pictorial  expression.1 

As  an  example  of  the  structure  of  the   gesture-language,  I 

1  Steintlial,  'Spr.  derT.,'p.  923. 


32  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

give  the  words  roughly  corresponding  to  the  signs  by  which 
the  Lord's  Prayer  is  acted  every  morning  at  the  Edinburgh  In- 
stitution. They  were  carefully  written  down  for  me  by  the 
Director,  and  I  made  notes  of  the  signs  by  which  the  various 
ideas  were  expressed  in  this  school^  "  Father  "  is  represented 
in  the  prayer  as  "  man  old,"  though  in  ordinary  matters  he  is 
generally  "  the  man  who  shaves  himself;  "  "  name  "  is,  as  I  have 
seen  it  elsewhere,  touching  the  forehead  and  imitating  .the 
action  of  spelling  on  the  fingers,  as  to  say,  "  the  spelling  one  is 
known  by."  To  "hallow"  is  to  "speak  good  of"  ("good" 
being  expressed  by  the  thumb,  while  "bad"  is  represented  by 
the  little  finger,  two  signs  of  which  the  meaning  lies  in  the 
contrast  of  the  larger  and  more  powerful  thumb  with  the 
smaller  and  less  important  little  finger).  "  Kingdom  "  is  shown 
by  the  sign  for  "  crown  ;  "  "  will,"  by  placing  the  hand  on  the 
stomach,  in  accordance  with  the  natural  and  wide-spread 
theory  that  desire  and  passion  are  located  there,  to  which 
theory  such  expressions  belong  as  "to  have  no  stomach  to  it." 
"  Done  "  is  "  worked,"  shown  by  hands  as  working.  The  phrase 
"  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven  "  was,  I  believe,  put  by  signs  for  "  on 
earth  "  and  "  in  heaven,"  and  then  by  putting  out  the  two  fore- 
fingers side  by  side,  the  sign  for  sameness  and  similarity  all  the 
world  over,  so  that  the  whole  would  stand  "  earth  on,  heaven  in, 
just  the  same."  "  Trespass  "  is  "  doing  bad ;  "  to  "  forgive  "  is 
to  rub  out,  as  from  a  slate  ;  "  temptation  "  is  plucking  one  by 
the  coat,  as  to  lead  him  slily  into  mischief.  The  alternative 
"  but "  is  made  with  the  two  fore-fingers,  not  alongside  of  one 
another  as  in  "like,"  but  opposed  point  to  point,  Sicard's  sign 
for  "against."  "Deliver"  is  to  "pluck  out,"  "glory"  is 
"glittering,"  "for  ever  "  is  shown  by  making  the  fore-fingers 
held  horizontally  turn  round  and  round  one  another. 

The  order  of  the  signs  is  much  as  follows  : — "  Father  our, 
heaven  in — name  thy  hallowed — kingdom  thy  come — will  thy 
done — earth  on,  heaven  in,  as.  Bread  give  us  daily — trespasses 
our  forgive  us,  them  trespass  against  us,  forgive,  as.  Temp- 
tation lead  not — but  evil  deliver  from — kingdom  power  glory 
thine  for  ever." 

"When  I  write  down  descriptions  in  words  of  the  deaf-and- 


THE   GESTURE- LANGUAGE.  33 

dumb  signs,  they  seem  bald  and  weak,  but  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  I  can  only  write  down  the  skeletons  of  them.  To  see 
them  is  something  very  different,  for  these  dry  bones  have  to  be 
covered  with  flesh.  Not  the  face  only,  but  the  whole  body  joins 
in  giving  expression  to  the  sign.  Nor  are  the  sober,  restrained 
looks  and  gestures  to  which  we  are  accustomed  in  our  daily  life 
sufficient  for  this.  He  who  talks  to  the  deaf-and-dumb  hi  their 
own  language,  must  throw  off  the  rigid  covering  that  the  English- 
man wears  over  his  face  like  a  tragic  mask,  that  never  changes 
its  expression  while  love  and  hate,  joy  and  sorrow,  come  out 
from  behind  it. 

Religious  service  is  performed  in  signs  in  many  deaf-and-dumb 
schools.  In  the  Berlin  Institution,  the  simple  Lutheran  service, 
a  prayer,  the  gospel  for  the  day,  and  a  sermon,  is  acted  every 
Sunday  morning  in  the  gesture-language  for  the  children  in  the 
school  and  the  deaf-and-dumb  inhabitants  of  the  city,  and  it  is  a 
very  remarkable  sight.  No  one  could  see  the  parable  of  the 
man  who  left  the  ninety  and  nine  sheep  in  the  wilderness,  and 
went  after  that  which  was  lost,  or  of  the  woman  who  lost  the 
one  piece  of  silver,  performed  in  expressive  pantomime  by  a 
master  in  the  art,  without  acknowledging  that  for  telling  a  simple 
story  and  making  simple  comments  on  it,  spoken  language  stands 
far  behind  acting.  The  spoken  narrative  must  lose  the  sudden 
anxiety  of  the  shepherd  when  he  counts  his  flock  and  finds  a 
sheep  wanting,  his  hurried  penning  up  the  rest,  his  running  up 
hill  and  down  dale,  and  spying  backwards  and  forwards,  his  face 
lighting  up  when  he  catches  sight  of  the  missing  sheep  in  the 
distance,  his  carrying  it  home  in  his  arms,  hugging  it  as  he 
goes.  We  hear  these  stories  read  as  though  they  were  lists  of 
generations  of  antediluvian  patriarchs.  The  deaf-and-dumb  pan- 
tomime calls  to  mind  the  "  action,  action,  action  !  "  of  Demos- 
thenes. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE   GESTURE-LANGUAGE— (CONTINUED). 

THEEE  is  another  department  of  the  gesture-language  which 
has  reached  nearly  as  high  a  development  as  that  in  use  among 
the  deaf-mutes.  Men  who  do  not  know  one  another's  language 
are  to  each  other  as  though  they  were  dumb.  Thus  Sophocles 
uses  ayXcoo-o-os,  "  tongueless,"  for  "  harbarian,"  as  contrasted 
with  "  Greek ;  "  and  the  Russians,  to  this  day,  call  their  neigh- 
bours the  Germans,  "  Njemez," — that  is,  speechless,  njcmmi 
meaning  dumb.  When  men  who  are  thus  dumb  to  one  another 
have  to  communicate  without  an  interpreter,  they  adopt  all  over 
the  world  the  very  same  method  of  communication  by  signs, 
which  is  the  natural  language  of  the  deaf-mutes. 

Alexander  von  Humboldt  has  left  on  record,  in  the  following 
passage,  his  experiences  of  the  gesture-language  among  the 
Indians  of  the  Orinoco,  in  districts  where  it  often  happens  that 
small,  isolated  tribes  speak  languages  of  which  even  their  nearest 
neighbours  can  hardly  understand  a  word  : — "  '  After  you  leave 
my  mission,'  said  the  good  monk  of  Uruana,  '  you  will  travel 
like  mutes.'  This  prediction  was  almost  accomplished ;  and, 
not  to  lose  all  the  advantage  that  is  to  be  had  from  intercourse 
even  with  the  most  brutalized  Indians,  we  have  sometimes  pre- 
ferred the  language  of  signs.  As  soon  as  the  native  sees  that 
you  do  not  care  to  employ  an  interpreter,  as  soon  as  you  ask 
him  direct  questions,  pointing  the  object  out  to  him,  he  comes 
out  of  his  habitual  apathy,  and  displays  a  rare  intelligence  in 
making  himself  understood.  He  varies  his  signs,  pronounces 
his  words  slowly,  and  repeats  them  without  being  asked.  His 
amour-propre  seems  flattered  by  the  consequence  you  accord  to 
him  by  letting  him  instruct  you.  This  facility  of  making  him- 


THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  35 

self  understood  is  above  all  remarkable  in  the  independent  Indian, 
and  in  the  Christian  missions  I  should  recommend  the  traveller 
to  address  himself  in  preference  to  those  of  the  natives  who  have 
been  but  lately  reduced,  or  who  go  back  from  time  to  time  to 
the  forest  to  enjoy  their  ancient  liberty."  l 

It  is  well  known  that  the  Indians  of  North  America,  whose 
nomade  habits  and  immense  variety  of  languages  must  continu- 
ally make  it  needful  for  them  to  communicate  with  tribes  whose 
language  they  cannot  speak,  carry  the  gesture-language  to  a  high 
degree  of  perfection,  and  the  same  signs  serve  as  a  medium  of 
converse  from  Hudson's  Bay  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Several 
writers  make  mention  of  this  "  Indian  pantomime,"  and  it  has 
been  carefully  described  in  the  account  of  Major  Long's  expedi- 
tion, and  more  recently  by  Captain  Burton.2  The  latter  traveller 
considers  it  to  be  a  mixture  of  natural  and  conventional  signs, 
but  so  far  as  I  can  judge  from  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  or  so 
which  he  describes,  and  those  I  find  mentioned  elsewhere,  I  do 
not  believe  that  there  is  a  really  arbitrary  sign  among  them. 
There  are  only  about  half-a-dozen  of  which  the  meaning  is  not 
at  once  evident,  and  even  these  appear  on  close  inspection  to  be 
natural  signs,  perhaps  a  little  abbreviated  or  conventionalized. 
I  am  sure  that  a  skilled  deaf-and-dumb  talker  would  understand 
an  Indian  interpreter,  and  be  himself  understood  at  first  sight, 
with  scarcely  any  difficulty.  The  Indian  pantomime  and  the 
gesture-language  of  the  deaf-and-dumb  are  but  different  dialects 
of  the  same  language  of  nature.  Burton  says  that  an  interpreter 
who  knows  all  the  signs  is  preferred  by  the  whites  even  to  a  good 
speaker.  "  A  story  is  told  of  a  man,  who,  being  sent  among 
the  Cheyennes  to  qualify  himself  for  interpreting,  returned  in  a 
week  and  proved  his  competence  :  all  that  he  did,  however,  was 
to  go  through  the  usual  pantomime  with  a  running  accompani- 
ment of  grunts." 

In  the  Indian  pantomime,  actions  and  objects  are  expressed 

1  Humboldt  and  Bonpland,  'Voyage  ; '  Paris,  1814,  etc.  vol.  ii.  p.  278. 

2  Edwin  James,  'Major  Stephen  H.  Long's  Exped.  Rocky  Moun.';  Philadelphia,  1823, 
i.  p.  378,  etc.     Capt.  R.  F.  Burton,  '  The  City  of  the  Saints,'  London,  1861,  p.  150, 
etc.     See  also  Prinz  Maximilian  von  Wied-Neuwied,  '  Voyage  dans  1'Interieur  de 
1'Amerique  du  Nord;'  Paris,  1840-3,  vol.  iii.  p.  389.     Buschmann,  'Spuren  der  Azt. 
Spr.,  etc.';  (Abh.  der  K.  Akad.  der  Wisseusch.  1854)  Berlin.  1859,  p.  641. 

J)  2 


36  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

very  much  as  a  deaf-mute  would  show  them.  The  action  of 
beckoning  towards  oneself  represents  to  "  come  ;  "  darting  the 
two  first  fingers  from  the  eyes  is  to  "  see  ;  "  describing  in  the 
air  the  form  of  the  pipe  and  the  curling  smoke  is  to  "  smoke  ;  " 
thrusting  the  hand  under  the  clothing  of  the  left  breast  is  to 
"  hide,  put  away,  keep  secret."  "  Enough  to  eat  "  is  shown  by 
an  imitation  of  eating,  and  the  forefingers  and  thumb  forming 
a  C,  with  the  points  towards  the  body,  are  raised  upward  as  far 
as  the  neck ;  "  fear,"  by  putting  the  hands  to  the  lower  ribs, 
and  showing  how  the  heart  flutters  and  seems  to  rise  to  the 
throat ;  "  book,"  by  holding  the  palms  together  before  the  face, 
opening  and  reading,  quite  in  deaf-and-dumb  fashion,  and  as  the 
Moslems  often  do  while  they  are  reciting  prayers  and  chapters  of 
the  Koran. 

One  of  our  accounts  says  that  "  fire  "  is  represented  by  the 
Indian  by  blowing  it  and  warming  his  hands  at  it;  the  other 
that  flames  are  imitated  with  the  fingers.  The  latter  sign  wae 
in  use  at  Berlin,  but  I  noticed  that  the  children  in  another 
school  did  not  understand  it  till  the  sign  of  blowing  was  added. 
The  Indian  and  the  deaf-mute  indicate  "rain"  by  the  same  sign, 
bringing  the  tips  of  the  fingers  of  the  partly-closed  hand  down- 
ward, like  rain  falling  from  the  clouds,  and  the  Indian  makes 
the  same  sign  do  duty  for  "year,"  counting  years  by  annual 
rains.  The  Indian  indicates  "  stone,"  if  light,  by  picking  it  up, 
if  heavy,  by  dropping  it.  The  deaf-mute  taps  his  teeth  with 
his  finger-nail  to  show  that  it  is  something  hard,  and  then  makes 
the  gesture  of  flinging  it.  The  Indian  sign  for  mounting  a  horse 
is  to  make  a  pair  of  legs  of  the  two  first  fingers  of  the  right  hand, 
and  to  straddle  them  across  the  left  fore-finger ;  a  similar  sign 
among  the  deaf-and-dumb  means  to  "  ride." 

Among  the  Indians  the  sign  for  "brother"  or  "sister"  is, 
according  to  Burton,  to  put  the  two  first  finger-tips  (that  is,  I 
suppose,  the  fore-fingers  of  both  hands)  into  the  mouth,  to  show 
that  both  fed  from  the  same  breast ;  the  deaf-mute  makes  the 
mere  sign  of  likeness  or  equality  suffice,  holding  out  the  fore- 
fingers of  both  hands  close  together,  a  sign  which,  according  to 
James,  also  does  duty  to  indicate  "  husband  "  or  "  companion." 
This  sign  of  the  two  forefingers  is  understood  everywhere,  and 


THE  GESTURE- LANGUAGE.  37 

some  very  curious  instances  of  its  use  in  remote  parts  of  the 
world  are  given  by  Marsh1  in  illustration  of  Fluellen's  "But  'tis 
all  one,  'tis  so  like  as  my  fingers  is  to  my  fingers."  It  belongs, 
too,  to  the  sign-language  of  the  Cistercian  monks. 

Animals  are  represented  in  the  Indian  pantomime  very  much 
as  the  deaf-and-dumb  would  represent  them,  by  signs  charac- 
terizing their  peculiar  ears,  horns,  etc.,  and  their  movements. 
Thus  the  sign  for  "  stag  "  among  the  deaf-and-dumb,  namely, 
the  thumbs  to  both  temples,  and  the  fingers  widely  spread  out, 
is  almost  identical  with  the  Indian  gesture.  For  the  dog,  how- 
ever, the  Indians  have  a  remarkable  sign,  which  consists  in 
trailing  the  two  first  fingers  of  the  right  hand,  as  if  they  were 
poles  dragged  along  the  ground.  Before  the  Indians  had 
horses,  the  dogs  were  trained  to  drag  the  lodge-poles  on  the 
march  in  this  way,  and  in  Catlin's  time  the  work  was  in  several 
tribes  divided  between  the  dogs  and  the  horses ;  but  it  appears 
that  in  tribes  where  the  trailing  is  now  done  by  horses  only,  the 
sign  for  "  dog  "  derived  from  the  old  custom  is  still  kept  up. 

One  of  the  Indian  signs  is  curious  as  having  reflected  itself  in 
the  spoken  language  of  the  country.  "  Water  "  is  represented 
by  an  imitation  of  scooping  up  water  with  the  hand  and  drinking 
out  of  it,  and  "  river  "  by  making  this  sign,  and  then  waving  the 
palms  of  the  hands  outward,  to  denote  an  extended  surface.  It 
is  evident  that  the  first  part  of  the  sign  is  translated  in  the 
western  Americanism  which  speaks  of  a  river  as  a  "  drink,"  and 
of  the  Mississippi,  par  excellence,  as  the  "Big  Drink." 2  It  need 
hardly  be  said  that  spoken  language  is  full  of  such  translations 
from  gestures,  as  when  one  is  said  to  wink  at  another's  faults, 
an  expression  which  shows  us  the  act  of  winking  accepted  as  a 
gesture-sign,  meaning  to  pretend  not  to  see.  But  the  Ameri- 
canism is  interesting  as  being  caught  so  near  its  source. 

I  noted  down  a  few  signs  from  Burton  as  not  self-evident,  but 
it  will  be  seen  that  they  are  all  to  be  explained.  They  are, 
"  yes,"  wave  the  hands  straightforward  from  the  face  ;  "  no," 
wave  the  hand  from  right  to  left  as  if  motioning  away.  These 

1  Marsh,  'Lectures  on  the  English  Language  ; '  London,  1862,  p.  486. 

2  J.  R.  Bartlett,   'Dictionary  of  Americanisms,'  2nd  edit.,  Boston,  1859,  t.  V. 
"Drink." 


38  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

signs  correspond  with  the  general  practice  of  mankind,  to  nod 
for  "yes,"  and  shake  the  head  for  "no."  The  idea  conveyed 
by  nodding  seems  to  correspond  with  the  deaf-and-dumh  sign 
for  "  truth,"  made  by  moving  the  finger  straightforward  from 
the  lips,  apparently  with  the  sense  of  "  straightforward  speak- 
ing," while  the  finger  is  moved  to  one  side  to  express  "  lie,"  as 
"  sideways  speaking."  The  understanding  of  nodding  and  shaking 
the  head  as  signs  of  assent  and  denial  appears  to  belong  to 
uneducated  deaf-and-dumb  children,  and  even  to  those  who  are 
only  one  degree  higher  than  idiots.  In  a  very  remarkable 
dissertation  on  the  art  of  thrusting  knowledge  into  the  minds  of 
such  children,  Schmalz  assumes  that  they  can  always  make  and 
understand  these  signs.1  It  is  true  they  may  have  learnt  them 
from  the  people  who  take  care  of  them. 

This  explanation  is,  however,  somewhat  complicated  by  the 
Indian  signs  for  "truth,"  and  "lie,"  given  by  Burton,  who  says 
that  the  fore-finger  extended  from  the  mouth  means  to  "  tell 
truth,"  "one- word;"  but  two  fingers  mean  to  "tell  lies," 
"  double  tongue."  So  to  move  two  fingers  before  the  left  breast 
means,  "  I  don't  know,"  that  is  to  say,  "  I  have  two  hearts."  I 
found  that  deaf-and-dumb  children  understood  this  Indian  sign 
for  "  lie  "  quite  as  well  as  their  own. 

"  Good,"  wave  the  hand  from  the  mouth,  extending  the 
thumb  from  the  index,  and  closing  the  other  three  fingers. 
This  is  like  kissing  the  hand  as  a  salutation,  or  what  children 
call  "  blowing  a  kiss,"  and  it  is  clearly  a  natural  sign,  as  it  is 
recognized  by  the  deaf-and-dumb  language.  Dr.  James  gives 
the  Indian  sign  as  waving  the  hand  with  the  back  upward,  in  a 
horizontal  curve  outwards,  the  well-known  gesture  of  benediction. 
At  Berlin,  a  gesture  like  that  of  patting  a  child  on  the  head, 
accompanied,  as  of  course  all  these  signs  are,  with  an  approving 
smile,  is  in  use.  Possibly  the  ideas  of  stroking  or  patting  may 
lie  at  the  bottom  of  all  these  signs  of  approving  and  blessing. 

"  Think,"  pass  the  fore-finger  sharply  across  the  breast  from 
right  to  left,  meaning  of  course  that  a  thought  passes  through 
one's  heart. 

;<  Trade,  exchange,  swop,"  cross  the  fore-fingers  of  both  hands 
1  Schmalz,  pp.  267-277.  See  Wedgwood,  p.  91. 


THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  39 

before  the  breast.  This  sign  is  also  used,  Captain  Burton  says, 
to  denote  Americans,  or  indeed  any  white  men,  who  are  generally 
called  by  the  Indians  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  "  shwop," 
from  their  trading  propensities.  As  given  by  Burton,  the  sign 
is  hardly  intelligible.  But  Dr.  James  describes  the  gesture  of 
which  this  is  a  sort  of  abridgment,  which  consists  in  holding 
up  the  two  fore-fingers,  and  passing  them  by  each  other  trans- 
versely in  front  of  the  breast  so  that  they  change  places,  and 
nothing  could  be  clearer  than  this. 

The  sign  in  the  Berlin  gesture-language  for  "  day  "  is  made 
by  opening  out  the  palms  of  the  hands.  I  supposed  it  to  be 
an  arbitrary  and  meaningless  sign,  till  I  found  the  Indian  sign 
for  "  this  morning  "  to  consist  in  the  same  gesture.  It  refers, 
perhaps  to  awaking  from  sleep,  or  to  the  opening  out  of 
the  day. 

As  a  means  of  communication,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
Indian  pantomime  is  not  merely  capable  of  expressing  a  few 
simple  and  ordinary  notions,  but  that,  to  the  uncultured  savage, 
with  his  few  and  material  ideas,  it  is  a  very  fair  substitute  for 
his  scanty  vocabulary.  Stansbury  mentions  a  discourse  delivered 
in  this  way  in  his  presence,  which  lasted  for  some  hours  occupied 
in  continuous  narration.  The  only  specimen  of  a  connected 
story  I  have  met  with  is  a  hunter's  simple  history  of  his  day's 
sport,  as  Captain  Burton  thinks  that  an  Indian  would  render  it 
in  signs.  The  story  to  be  told  is  as  follows : — "Early  this  morn- 
ing, I  mounted  my  horse,  rode  off  at  a  gallop,  traversed  a  kanyon 
or  ravine,  then  over  a  mountain  to  a  plain  where  there,  was  no 
water,  sighted  bison,  followed  them,  killed  three  of  them,  skinned 
them,  packed  the  flesh  upon  my  pony,  remounted,  and  returned 
home."  The  arrangement  of  the  signs  described  is  as  follows: — 
I — this  morning — early — mounted  my  horse — galloped — a 
kanyon — crossed — a  mountain — a  plain — drink — no  ! — sighted 
— bison — killed — three — skinned — packed  flesh — mounted — 
hither."  There  is  perhaps  nothing  which  would  strike  a  deaf- 
and-dumb  man  as  peculiar  in  the  sequence  of  these  signs  ;  but 
it  would  be  desirable  for  a  real  discourse,  delivered  by  an  Indian 
in  signs,  to  be  taken  down,  especially  if  its  contents  were  of  a 
more  complex  nature. 


40  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

Among  the  Cistercian  monks  there  exists,  or  existed,  a  ges- 
ture-language. As  a  part  of  their  dismal  system  of  mortifying 
the  deeds  of  the  body,  they  held  speech,  except  in  religious 
exercises,  to  be  sinful.  But  for  certain  purposes  relating  to  the 
vile  material  life  that  they  could  not  quite  shake  off,  communi- 
cation among  the  brethren  was  necessary,  so  the  difficulty  was 
met  by  the  use  of  pantomimic  signs.  Two  of  their  written 
lists  or  dictionaries  are  printed  in  the  collected  edition  of  Leib- 
nitz's works,1  one  in  Latin,  the  other  in  Low  German ;  they  are 
not  identical,  but  appear  to  be  mostly  or  altogether  derived  from 
a  list  drawn  up  by  authority. 

A  great  part  of  the  Cistercian  gesture-signs  are  either  just 
what  the  deaf-and-dumb  would  make,  or  are  so  natural  that  they 
would  at  once  understand  -them.  Thus,  to  make  a  roof  with  the 
fingers  is '"  house ;  "  to  grind  the  fists  together  is  "  corn  ;  "  to 
"  sing"  is  indicated  by  beating  time ;  to  "  bathe  "  is  to  imitate 
washing  the  breast  with  the  hollow  of  the  hand  ;  "  candle,"  or 
"  fire,"  is  shown  by  holding  up  the  fore-finger  and  blowing  it 
out  like  a  candle  ;  a  "  goat  "  is  indicated  by  the  fingers  hanging 
from  the  chin  like  a  beard ;  "  salt,"  by  taking  an  imaginary 
pinch  and  sprinkling  it ;  "  butter,"  by  the  action  of  spreading  it 
in  the  palm  of  the  hand.  The  deaf-and-dumb  sign  used  at 
Berlin  and  other  places  to  indicate  "  time"  by  drawing  the  tip 
of  the  fore-finger  up  the  arm,  is  in  the  Cistercian  list  "a  year ;  " 
it  is  Sicard's  sign  for  "  long,"  and  the  idea  it  conveys  is  plainly 
that  of  "  a  length  "  transferred  from  space  to  time.  To  "  go  " 
is  to  make  the  two  first  fingers  walk  hanging  in  the  air  (Hengestu 
se  dahl  und  rorest  se,  betekend  Gaheri),  while  the  universal  sign 
of  the  two  fore-fingers  stands  for  "  like  "  (Holstu  se  even  thosa- 
men,  dat  betekent  like).  The  sign  for  "  beer  "is  to  put  the 
hand  before  the  face  and  blow  into  it,  as  if  blowing  off  the  froth 
(Thustu  de  hand  vor  dem  anschlahe  dat  du  darin  pustest,  dat 
bediidt  gut  Bier).  Wiping  your  mouth  with  the  whole  hand 
upwards  (cum  omnibus  digitis  terge  buccam  sursum),  means 
a  country  clown  (rusticus). 

To  put  the  fore-finger  against  the  closed  lips  is  "  silence," 

1  Leibnitz,  Opera  Omnia,  ed.  Dutens ;  Geneva,  1768,  vol.  vl  part  ii.  p. 
207,  etc. 


THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  41 

but  the  finger  put  in  the  mouth  means  a  "  child."  These  are 
two  very  natural  and  distinct  signs ;  but  then  the  finger  to  the 
lips  for  "  silence  "  may  serve  also  quite  fitly  to  show  that  a  child 
so  represented  is  an  infant,  that  is,  that  it  cannot  speak.  The 
confusion  of  the  signs  of  "  childhood  "  and  "  silence  "  once  led 
to  a  curious  misunderstanding.  The  infant  Horus,  god  of  the 
dawn,  was  appropriately  represented  by  the  Egyp- 
tians as  a  child  with  his  fingers  to  his  lips,  and  his 
name  as  written  in  the  hieroglyphics  (Fig.  1)  may 
be  read  Har-(p)-chrot,  "  Horus-(the)-son." l  The 
Greeks  mistook  the  meaning  of  .the  gesture,  and 
(as  it  seems)  Grecizing  this  name  into  Harpo- 
krates,  adopted  him  as  the  god  of  silence.  *'  * 

To  conclude,  the  Cistercian  lists  contain  a  number  of  signs 
which  at  first  sight  seem  conventional,  but  yet  a  meaning  may 
be  discerned  in  most  or  all  of  them.  Thus,  it  seems  foolish  to 
make  two  fingers  at  the  right  side  of  one's  nose  stand  for 
"  friend ;  "  but  when  we  see  that  placed  on  the  left  side,  they 
stand  for  "  enemy,"  it  becomes  clear  that  it  is  the  opposition  of 
right  and  left  that  is  meant.  So  the  little  finger  to  the  tip  of 
the  nose  means  "fool,"  which  seemingly  poor  sign  is  explained 
by  the  fore-finger  being  put  there  for  "  wise  man."  The  fact  of 
such  a  contrast  as  wise  and  foolish  being  made  between  the  fore- 
finger and  the  little  finger,  corresponds  with  the  use  of  the 
thumb  and  little  finger  for  "  good  "  and  "  bad  "  by  the  deaf-and- 
dumb,  and  makes  it  likely  that  both  pairs  of  signs  may  be 
natural,  and  independent  of  one  another.  The  sign  of  grasping 
the  nose  with  the  crooked  fore-finger  for  "  wine,"  suggests  that 
the  thought  of  a  jolly  red  nose  was  present  even  in  so  unlikely  a 
place.  The  sign  for  "  the  devil,"  gripping  one's  chin  with  all 
five  fingers,  shows  the  enemy  seizing  a  victim.  In  a  mediaeval 
picture,  an  angel  may  be  seen  taking  a  man  by  the  chin  with 
one  hand,  and  pointing  up  to  heaven  with  the  other.  Thus,  in 
a  Hindoo  tale,  Old  Age  in  person  comes  to  claim  his  own.  "  In 
time  then,  when  1  had  grown  grey  with  years,  Old  Age  took  me 

1  Coptic  ihroti  (ni)  =  filii,  liberi,  hroti  =  cognatus,  filius.  Old  Eg.  in  Rosetta  Ins. 
Compare  S.  Sharpe,  Hist,  of  Egypt,  4th  ed.  vol.  ii.  p.  148.  Wilkinson,  'Popular 
Account  of  the  Ancient  Egyptians  ;'  London,  1854  vol.  ii,  p.  182. 


42  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

by  the  chin,  and  in  his  love  to  me  said  kindly,  '  My  son,  what 
doest  thou  yet  in  the  house  ? '" l 

There  is  yet  another  development  of  the  gesture-language  to 
be  noticed,  the  stage  performances  of  the  professional  mimics  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  the  pantomime  par  excellence.  To  judge  by 
two  well-known  anecdotes,  the  old  mimes  had  brought  their  art 
to  great  perfection.  Macrobius  says  it  was  a  well-known  fact 
that  Cicero  used  to  try  with  Roscius  the  actor,  which  of  them 
could  express  a  sentiment  in  the  greater  variety  of  ways,  the 
player  by  mimicry  or  the  orator  by  speech,  and  that  these  ex- 
periments gave  Roscius  such  confidence  in  his  art,  that  he  wrote 
a  book  comparing  oratory  with  acting.2  Lucian  tells  a  story  of 
a  certain  barbarian  prince  of  Pontus,  who  was  at  Nero's  court, 
and  saw  a  pantomime  perform  so  well,  that  though  he  could 
not  understand  the  songs  which  the  player  was  accompanying 
with  his  gestures,  he  could  follow  the  performance  from  the 
acting  alone.  When  Xero  afterwards  asked  the  prince  to  choose 
what  he  would  have  for  a  present,  he  begged  to  have  the  player 
given  to  him,  saying  that  it  was  difficult  to  get  interpreters  to 
communicate  with  some  of  the  tribes  in  his  neighbourhood  who 
spoke  different  languages,  but  that  this  man  would  answer  the 
purpose  perfectly.3 

It  would  seem  from  these  stories  that  the  ancient  pantomimes 
generally  used  gestures  so  natural  that  their  meaning  was  self- 
evident,  but  a  remark  of  St.  Augustine's  intimates  that  signs 
understood  only  by  regular  playgoers  were  also  used.  "  For  all 
those  things  which  are  valid  among  men,  because  it  pleases 
them  to  agree  that  they  shall  be  so,  are  human  institutions.  .  .  . 
So  if  the  signs  which  mimes  make  in  their  performances  had 
their  meaning  from  nature,  and  not  from  the  agreement  and 
ordinance  of  men,  the  crier  in  old  times  would  not  have  given 
out  to  the  Carthaginians  at  the  play  what  the  actor  meant  to 
express,  a  thing  still  remembered  by  many  old  men  by  whom 
we  use  to  hear  it  said ;  which  is  readily  to  be  believed,  seeing 
that  even  now,  if  any  one  who  is  not  learned  in  such  follies  goes 

1  '  Mahrchensamnjlung  des  Somadeva  Bbatta'  (trans,  by  Dr.  H.  Brockhaus);  Leipzig, 
1843,  ii.  p.  96. 

}  Macrob.  Saturn,  lib.  ii.  c.  x.  »  Lucian.     De  Saltatione,  64. 


THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  43 

into  the  theatre,  unless  some  one  else  tells  him  what  the  signs 
mean,  he  can  make  nothing  of  them.  All  men,  indeed,  desire  a 
certain  likeness  in  sign-making,  that  the  signs  should  be  as  like 
as  may  be  to  that  which  is  signified ;  but  seeing  that  things 
may  be  like  one  another  in  many  ways,  such  signs  are  not 
constant  among  men,  unless  by  common  consent."  l 

Knowing  what  we  do  of  mimic  performances  from  other 
sources,  we  can,  I  think,  only  understand  by  this  that  natural 
gestures  were  very  commonly  conventionalized  and  abridged  to 
save  time  and  trouble,  and  not  that  arbitrary  signs  were  used ; 
and  such  abridgments,  like  the  simplified  sign  for  trading  or 
swopping  among  the  Indians,  as  well  as  the  whole  class  of 
epithets  and  allusions  which  would  grow  up  among  mimics 
addressing  their  regular  set  of  playgoers,  would  not  be  intelli- 
gible to  a  stranger.  Christians,  of  course,  did  not  frequent  such 
performances  in  St.  Augustine's  time,  but  looked  upon  them  as 
utterly  abominable  and  devilish ;  nor  can  we  accuse  them  of 
want  of  charity  for  this,  when  we  consider  the  class  of  scenes 
that  were  commonly  chosen  for  representation. 

There  seem  to  have  been  written  lists  of  signs  used  to  learn 
from,  which  are  now  lost.2  The  mimic,  it  should  be  observed, 
had  not  the  same  difficulties  to  contend  with  as  an  Indian 
interpreter.  In  the  first  place,  the  stories  represented  were 
generally  mythological,  very  usually  love-passages  of  the  gods 
and  heroes,  with  which  the  whole  audience  was  perfectly  fami- 
liar ;  and,  moreover,  appropriate  words  were  commonly  sung 
while  the  mimic  acted,  so  that  he  could  apply  all  his  skill  to 
giving  artistic  illustrations  of  the  tale  as  it  went  on.  The  pan- 
tomimic performances  of  Southern  Europe  may  be  taken  as 
representing  in  some  degree  the  ancient  art,  but  it  is  likely  that 
the  mimicry  in  the  modern  ballet  and  the  Eastern  pantomimic 
plays  falls  much  below  the  classical  standard  of  excellence. 

I  have  now  noticed  what  I  venture  to  call  the  principal  dialects 
of  the  gesture-language.  It  is  fit,  however,  that,  gesture-signs 
having  been  spoken  of  as  forming  a  complete  and  independent 
language  by  themselves,  something  should  be  said  of  their  use 

1  Aug.  Doct.  Chr.  ii.  25. 

2  Grysar,  in  Ersch  and  Gruber,  art.  "  Pantomimische  Kunst  der  Alien." 


44  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

as  an  accompaniment  to  spoken  language.  We  in  England 
make  comparatively  little  use  of  these  signs,  but  they  have  been 
and  are  in  use  in  all  quarters  of  the  world  as  highly  important 
aids  to  conversation.  Thus,  Captain  Cook  says  of  the  Tahitians, 
after  mentioning  their  habit  of  counting  upon  their  fingers,  that 
"in  other  instances,  we  observed  taat,  when  they  were  convers- 
ing with  each  other,  they  joined  signs  to  their  words,  which 
were  so  expressive  that  a  stranger  might  easily  apprehend  their 
meaning; '"  and  Charlevoix  describes,  in  almost  the  same  words, 
the  expressive  pantomime  with  which  an  Indian  orator  accom- 
panied his  discourse.* 

Gesticulation  goes  along  with  speech,  to  explain  and  empha- 
size it,  among  all  mankind.  Savage  and  half-civilized  races 
accompany  their  talk  with  expressive  pantomime  much  more 
than  nations  of  higher  culture.  The  continual  gesticulation  of 
Hindoos,  Arabs,  Greeks,  as  contrasted  with  the  more  northern 
nations  of  Europe,  strikes  every  traveller  who  sees  them ;  and 
the  colloquial  pantomime  of  Naples  is  the  subject  of  a  special 
treatise.3  But  we  cannot  lay  down  a  rule  that  gesticulation 
decreases  as  civilization  advances,  and  say,  for  instance,  that  a 
Southern  Frenchman,  because  his  talk  is  illustrated  with  ges- 
tures, as  a  book  with  pictures,  is  less  civilized  than  a  German  or 
an  Englishman. 

We  English  are  perhaps  poorer  in  the  gesture -language  than 
any  other  people  in  the  world.  We  use  a  form  of  words  to 
denote  what  a  gesture  or  a  tone  would  express.  Perhaps  it  is 
because  we  read  and  write  so  much,  and  have  come  to  think  and 
talk  as  we  should  write,  and  so  let  fall  those  aids  to  speech 
which  cannot  be  carried  into  the  written  language. 

The  few  gesture- signs  which  are  in  common  use  among  our- 
selves are  by  no  means  unworthy  of  examination ;  but  we  have 
lived  for  so  many  centuries  in  a  highly  artificial  state  of  society, 
that  some  of  them  cannot  be  interpreted  with  any  certainty,  and 
the  most  that  we  can  do  is  to  make  a  good  guess  at  their  original 
meaning.  Some,  it  is  true,  such  as  beckoning  or  motioning 

1  Cook.  First  Voyage,  in  Hawkesworth's  Voyages  ;  London,  1773,  vol.  il  p.  228. 

*  Charlevoix,  vol.  i   p.  413. 

*  Wiseman,  '  Essays ;'  Loadon,  1853,  vol.  iii.  p.  531. 


THE   GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  45 

away  with  the  hand,  shaking  the  fist,  etc.,  carry  their  explana- 
tion with  them  ;  and  others  may  he  plausibly  explained  by  a 
comparison  with  analogous  signs  used  by  speaking  men  in  other 
parts  of  the  world,  and  by  the  deaf-and-dumb.  Thus,  the  sign 
of  "snapping-  one's  fingers"  is  not  very  intelligible  as  we 
generally  see  it ;  but  when  we  notice  that  the  same  sign  made 
quite  gently,  as  if  rolling  some  tiny  object  away  between  the 
finger  and  thumb,  or  the  sign  of  flipping  it  away  with  the 
thumb-nail  and  fore-finger,  are  usual  and  well-understood  deaf- 
and-dumb  gestures,  denoting  anything  tiny,  insignificant,  con- 
temptible, it  seems  as  though  we  had  exaggerated  and  conven- 
tionalized a  perfectly  natural  action  so  as  to  lose  sight  of  its 
original  meaning.  There  is  a  curious  mention  of  this  gesture 
by  Strabo.  At  Anchiale,  he  writes,  Aristobulus  says  there  is  a 
monument  to  Sardanapalus,  and  a  stone  statue  of  him  as  if 
snapping  his  fingers,  and  this  inscription  in  Assyrian  letters : — 
"  Sardanapallus,  the  son  of  Anacyndaraxes,  built  in  one  day 
Anchiale  and  Tarsus.  Eat,  drink,  play ;  the  rest  is  not  worth 
that .'  " ' 

Shaking  hands  is  not  a  custom  which  belongs  naturally  to  all 
mankind,  and  we  may  sometimes  trace  its  introduction  into 
countries  where  it  was  before  unknown.  The  Fijians,  for  in- 
stance, who  used  to  salute  by  smelling  or  sniffing  at  one 
another,  have  learnt  to  shake  hands  from  the  missionaries.1 
The  Wa-nika,  near  Mombaz,  grasp  hands ;  but  they  use  the 
Moslem  variety  of  the  gesture,  which  is  to  press  the  thumbs 
against  one  another  as  well,3  and  this  makes  it  all  but  certain 
that  the  practice  is  one  of  the  many  effects  of  Moslem  influence 
in  East  Africa. 

It  is  commonly  thought  that  the  Red  Indians  adopted  the 
custom  of  shaking  hands  from  the  white  men."  This  may  be 
true;  but  there  is  reason  to  suppose  that  the  expression  of 

1  Strabo,  xiv.  5,  9. 

2  Rev.  Thos.  Williams,   'Fiji  and  the  Fijians,'  2nd  ed.  ;  London,  1860,  voL  L 
p.  153. 

3  Krapf,  'Travels,  etc.,  in  East  Africa  ; '  London,  1860,  p.  138. 

4  H.  R.  Schoolcraft,  '  Historical  and  Statistical  Information  respecting  the  History, 
etc.,  of  the  Indian  Tribes  of  the  U.  S.;'  Philadelphia,  1851,  etc.,  part  iii.  pp.  212, 
241    Burton,  'City  of  the  Saints,'  p.  144.    But  see  also  Schoolcraft,  part  iii.  p.  263. 


46  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

alliance  or  friendship  by  clasping  hands  was  already  familiar  to 
them,  so  that  they  would  readily  adopt  it  as  a  form  of  saluta- 
tion, if  they  had  not  used  it  so  before  the  arrival  of  the  Euro- 
peans. More  than  a  century  ago,  Charlevoix  noticed  in  the 
Indian  j/icture-writing  the  expression  of  alliance  by  the  figure  of 
two  men  holding  each  other  by  one  hand,  while  each  grasped  a 
calumet  in  the  other  hand.1  In  one  of  the  Indian  pictures  given 
by  Schoolcraft,  close  affection  is  represented  by  two  bodies 
united  by  a  single  arm  (see  Fig.  6) ;  and  in  a  pictorial  message 
sent  from  an  Indian  tribe  to  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
an  cu'4e,  which  represents  a  chief,  is  holding  out  a  hand  to  the 
President,  who  also  holds  out  a  hand.3  The  last  of  these  pic- 
tured si<*ns  may  be  perhaps  ascribed  to  European  influence,  but 
hardly  the  first  two. 

We  could  scarcely  find  a  better  illustration  of  the  meaning  of 
the  gesture  of  joining  hands  than  in  its  use  as  a  sign  of  the 
marriage  contract.  One  of  the  ceremonies  of  a  Moslem  wedding 
consists  in  the  bridegroom  and  the  bride's  proxy  sitting  upon 
the  ground,  face  to  face,  with  one  knee  on  the  ground,  and 
grasping  each  other's  right  hands,  raising  the  thumbs  and 
pressing  them  against  each  other,*  or  in  the  almost  identical 
ceremony  in  the  Pacific  Islands,  in  which  the  bride  and  bride- 
groom are  placed  on  a  large  white  cloth,  spread  on  the  pavement 
of  a  marae,  and  join  hands/  This  as  evidently  means  that  the 
man  and  wife  are  joined  together,  as  the  corresponding  ceremony 
in  the  ancient  Mexican  and  the  modern  Hindu  wedding,  in 
which  the  clothes  of  the  parties  are  tied  together  in  a  knot. 
Among  our  own  Aryan  race,  the  taking  hands  was  a  usual  cere- 
mony in  marriage  in  the  Vedic  period.5  The  idea  which  shaking 
hands  was  originally  intended  to  convey,  was  clearly  that  of 
fastening  together  in  peace  and  friendship  ;  and  the  same 
thought  appears  in  the  probable  etymology  of  peace,  pax, 
Sanskrit  pa?,  to  bind,  and  in  league  from  ligare. 

Cowering  or  crouching  is  so  natural  an  expression  of  fear  or 

1  Charlevoix,  vol.  v.  p.  440.  2  Schoolcraft,  parti,  pp.  403,  418. 

*  E.  W.  Lane,  '  Modern  Egyptians  ;•'  London,  1837,  vol.  i.  p.  219. 

4  Rev.  W.  Ellis,  'Polynesian  Researches  ;'  London^  1830,  vol.  ii.  p.  569. 

•  Ad.  Pictet,  '  Ojigines  Indo-Europeenues ;  '  Paris,  1859-63,  part  ii.  p.  336. 


THE   GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  47 

inability  to  resist,  that  it  belongs  to  the  brutes  as  well  as  to 
man.  Among  ourselves  this  natural  sign  of  submission  is 
generally  used  in  the  modified  forms  of  bowing  and  kneeling  ; 
but  the  analogous  gestures  found  in  different  countries  not  only 
give  us  the  intermediate  stages  between  an  actual  prostration 
and  a  slight  bow,  but  also  a  set  of  gestures  and  ceremonies 
which  are  merely  suggestive  of  a  prostration  which  is  not  actually 
performed.  The  extreme  act  of  lying  with  the  face  in  the  dust 
is  not  only  usual  in  China,  Siam,  etc.,  but  even  in  Siberia  the 
peasant  grovels  on  the  ground  and  kisses  the  dust  before  a  man 
of  rank.  The  Arab  only  suggests  such  a  humiliation  by  bending 
his  hand  to  the  ground  and  then  putting  it  to  his  lips  and  fore- 
head,— a  gesture  almost  identical  with  that  of  the  ancient 
Mexican,  who  touched  the  ground  with  his  right  hand  and  put 
it  to  his  mouth.1  Captain  Cook  describes  the  way  of  doing  re- 
verence to  chiefs  in  the  Tonga  Islands,  which  was  in  this  wise : — 
When  a  subject  approached  to  do  homage,  the  chief  had  to  hold 
up  his  foot  behind,  as  a  horse  does,  and  the  subject  touched  the 
sole  with  his  fingers,  thus  placing  himself,  as  it  were,  under  the 
sole  of  his  lord's  foot.  Every  one  seemed  to  have  the  right  of 
doing  reverence  in  this  way  when  he  pleased  ;  and  chiefs  got  so 
tired  of  holding  up  their  feet  to  be  touched,  that  they  would 
make  their  escape  at  the  very  sight  of  a  loyal  subject.2  Other 
developments  of  the  idea  are  found  in  the  objection  made  to  a 
Polynesian  chief  going  down  into  the  ship's  cabin,3  and  to  images 
of  Buddha  being  kept  there4  in  Siam,  namely,  that  they  were  in- 
sulted by  the  sailors  walking  over  their  heads,  and  in  the  custom, 
also  among  the  Tongans,  of  sitting  down  when  a  chief  passed.5 
The  ancient  Egyptian  may  be  seen  in  the  sculptures  abbreviating 
the  gesture  of  touching  the  ground,  by  merely  putting  one  hand 
clown  to  his  knee  in  bowing  before  a  superior.  A  slight  inclina- 
tion of  the  body  indicates  submission  or  reverence,  and  becomes 
at  last  a  mere  act  of  politeness,  not  involving  any  sense  of  in- 
feriority at  all.  This  is  brought  about  by  that  common  habit  of 

1  A.  v.  Humboldt,  '  Yues  des  Cordilleres  ; '  Paris,  1810,  p.  83. 

3  Cook.  Third  Voyage,  2nd  ed. ;  London,  1785,  vol.  i.  pp.  267,  409. 
8  Cook,  Third  Voyage,  vol.  i.  p.  265. 

4  Sir  J.  Bowring,  '  Siam  ; '  London,  1857,  vol.  i.  p.  125.         5  Cook,  ib.  p.  409. 


43  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

civilized  man,  of  pretending  to  a  humility  that  he  does  not  feel, 
which  leads  the  Chinese  to  allude  to  himself  in  conversation  as 
"  the  blockhead  "  or  "  the  thief,"  and  makes  our  own  high  official 
personages  write  themselves,  Sir,  your  most  obedient  humble 
sen-ant,  to  persons  whom  they  really  consider  their  inferiors. 

With  regard  to  the  position  of  the  hands  in  prayer,  there 
seems  to  have  been  a  confusion  of  gestures  distinct  in  their 
origin.  With  hands  held  out  as  if  to  touch  or  embrace  a  pro- 
tector, to  receive  a  gift,  to  ward  off  a  blow,  to  present  a  helpless 
suppliant,  unresisting  or  even  offering  his  wrists  for  the  cord,1 
the  worshipper  has  means  of  expression  which,  when  meaning 
becomes  stiff  in  ceremony,  he  often  misapplies.  It  is  not  un- 
natural that  mercy  or  protection  should  be  looked  upon  as  a  gift, 
and  that  the  rustic  Phidyle  should  hold  out  her  supine  hands  to 
ask  that  her  vines  should  not  feel  the  pestilent  south-west  wind  ; 
but  the  conventionalizing  process  is  carried  much  further  when 
the  hands  clasped  or  with  the  finger-tips  set  together  can  be 
used  to  ask  for  a  benefit  which  they  cannot  even  catch  hold  of 
when  it  comes. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  give  a  plausible  reason  for  the  custom  of 
taking  off  the  hat  as  an  expression  of  reverence  or  politeness,  by 
referring  it  to  times  when  armour  was  generally  worn.  To  take 
off  the  helmet  would  be  equivalent  to  disarming,  and  would  indi- 
cate, in  the  most  practical  manner,  either  submission  or  peace. 
The  practice  of  laying  aside  arms  on  entering  a  house  appears  in 
a  quotation  from  the  '  Boke  of  Curtayse,'  which  shows  that  in 
the  Middle  Ages  visitors  were  expected  to  leave  their  weapons 
with  the  porter  at  the  outer  gate,  and  when  they  came  to  the 
hall  door  to  take  off  hoods  and  gloves. 

"  When  thou  come  tho  hall  dor  to, 
Do  of  thy  hode,  thy  gloves  also."  8 

That  women  are  not  required  to  uncover  their  heads  in  church 
or  on  a  visit,  is  quite  consistent  with  such  an  origin  of  the 
custom,  as  their  head-dresses  were  not  armour ;  and  the  same 

1  Wedgwood,  'Origin  of  Language  ;'  London,  1866,  p.   146.     Grimm,  D.  M.  p. 
1200.^   Meiners,  'Allg.  Geseh.  der  Keligionen ; '  Hanover,  1806-7,  vol.  ii.  p.  280. 
*  Wright,  'History  of  Domestic  Manners,'  etc.;  London,  lbb'2,  p.  141. 


THE   GESTURE- LANGUAGE.  49 

consistency  may  be  observed  in  the  practice  of  ladies  keeping 
the  glove  on  in  shaking  hands,  while  men  very  commonly  re- 
move it.  When  a  knight's  glove  was  a  steel  gauntlet,  such  a 
distinction  would  be  reasonable  enough. 

This  may  indeed  be  fanciful.  The  practice  of  women  having 
the  head  covered  in  church  belongs  to  the  earliest  period  of 
Christianity,  and  the  reasons  for  adopting  it  were  clearly  speci- 
fied. And  the  usage  of  men  praying  with  the  head  uncovered, 
may  have  been  an  intentional  reversal  of  the  practice  of  covering 
the  head  in  offering  sacrifice  among  the  Romans,  and  among  the 
Jews  in  their  prayers  then  and  now.  It  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  universal,  and  is  even  now  not  followed  in  the  Coptic"  and 
Abyssinian  churches,  in  which  the  Semitic  custom  of  uncovering 
not  the  head  but  the  feet  is  still  kept  up.  This  latter  ceremony 
is  of  high  antiquity,  and  may  be  plausibly  explained  as  having 
been  done  at  first  merely  for  cleanliness,  as  it  is  now  among  the 
Moslems  in  their  baths  and  houses,  as  well  as  in  their  mosques, 
that  the  ground  may  not  be  defiled. 

There  are,  moreover,  a  number  of  practices  found  in  different 
parts  of  the  world,  which  throw  doubt  on  these  off-hand  explana- 
tions of  the  customs  of  uncovering  the  head  and  feet,  and  would 
almost  lead  us  to  include  both,  as  particular  cases  of  a  general 
class  of  reverential  uncoverings  of  the  body.  Saul  strips  off  his 
clothes  to  prophesy,  and  lies  down  so  all  that  day  and  night.1 
Tertullian  speaks  against  the  practice  of  praying  with  cloaks 
laid  aside,  as  the  heathen  do.3  There  was  a  well-known  custom 
in  Tahiti,  of  uncovering  the  body  down  to  the  waist  in  honour  of 
gods  or  chiefs,  and  even  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  temple,  and 
on  the  sacred  ground  set  apart  for  royalty,  with  which  may  be 
classed  a  very  odd  ceremony,  which  was  performed  before  Cap- 
tain Cook  on  his  first  visit  to  the  island.3 

The  regulations  concerning  the  fow  or  turban  in  the  Tonga 
Islands  are  very  curious,  from  their  partial  resemblance  to  Euro- 
pean usages.  The  turban,  Mariner  says,  may  only  be  worn  by 
warriors  going  to  battle,  or  at  sham  fights,  or  at  night-time  by 

1  1  Sam.  xix.  24.  2  Tcrt.,  '  De  Oratione,'  xii. 

3  Cook,  '  First  Voy.  H.,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  125, 153.  Ellis,  ' Polyn.  Jits.,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  171, 
352-3. 


50  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

chiefs  and  nobles,  or  by  the  common  people  when  at  work  in  the 
fields  or  in  canoes.  On  all  other  occasions,  to  wear  a  head-dress 
would  be  disrespectful,  for  although  no  chief  should  be  present, 
some  god  might  be  at  hand  unseen.  If  a  man  were  to  wear  a  tur- 
ban except  on  these  occasions,  the  first  person  of  superior  rank 
who  met  him  would  knock  him  down,  and  perhaps  even  an  equal 
mi^ht  do  it.  Even  when  the  turban  is  allowed  to  be  worn,  it 
must  be  taken  off  when  a  superior  approaches,  unless  in  actual 
battle,  but  a  man  who  is  not  much  higher  in  rank  will  say, 
"  Toogo  ho  fow,"  that  is,  Keep  on  your  turban.1 

During  the  administration  of  the  ordeal  by  poison  in  Madagas- 
car,'Ellis  says  that  no  one  is  allowed  to  sit  on  his  long  robe,  nor 
to  wear  the  cloth  round  the  waist,  and  females  must  keep  their 
shoulders  uncovered.2  A  remarkable  statement  is  made  by  Ibn 
Batuta,  in  his  account  of  his  journey  into  the  Soudan,  in  the 
fourteenth  century.  He  mentions  as  an  evil  thing  which  he  has 
observed  in  the  conduct  of  the  blacks,  that  women  may  only 
come  unclothed  into  the  presence  of  the  Sultan  of  Melli,  and 
even  the  Sultan's  own  daughters  must  conform  to  the  custom. 
He  notices  also,  that  they  threw  dust  and  ashes  on  their  heads 
as  a  sign  of  reverence,3  which  makes  it  appear  that  the  stripping 
was  also  a  mere  act  of  humiliation.  With  regard  to  the  practice 
of  uncovering  the  feet,  when  we  find  the  Damaras,  in  South 
Africa,  taking  off  their  sandals,  before  entering  a  stranger's 
house,4  the  idea  of  connecting  the  practice  with  the  ancient 
Egyptian  custom,  or  of  ascribing  it  to  Moslem  influence,  at 
once  suggests  itself,  but  the  taking  off  the  sandals  as  a  sign 
of  respect  seems  to  have  prevailed  in  Peru.  No  common 
Indian,  it  is  said,  dared  go  shod  along  the  Street  of  the  Sun, 
nor  might  any  one,  however  great  a  lord  he  might  be,  enter  the 
houses  of  the  sun  with  shoes  on,  and  even  the  Inca  himself  went 
barefoot  into  the  Temple  of  the  Sun.;> 

-  Mariner,  '  Tonga  Islands  ; '  vol.  L  p.  158. 

8  R«v.  W.  Ellis,  '  Hist,  of  Madagascar  ; '  London,  1838,  vol.  i.  p.  4«4. 
8  Ibn  Batuta  in  'Journal  Asiatique,'  4me  Serie,  vol.  i.  p.  221.     Waitz,  'Introd.  to 
Anthropology,'  E.  Tr.  ed.  by  J.  F.  Collingwood  ;  part  i.,  London,  1863,  p.  301. 
1  C.  J.  Andersson,  'Lake  Ngami,'  etc.,  2nd  ed.;  London,  1856,  p.  231. 
1  Prescott,  'History  of  the  Conquest  of  Peru,1  2nd  ed. ;  London,  1847,  vol.  i.  pp. 
97,  78. 


THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  51 

In  this  group  of  reverential  uncoverings,  the  idea  that  the 
subject  presents  himself  naked,  defenceless,  poor,  and  miserable 
before  his  lord,  seems  to  be  dramatically  expressed,  and  this 
view  is  borne  out  by  the  practice  of  stripping,  or  uncovering  the 
head  and  feet,  as  a  sign  of  mourning,1  where  there  can  hardly  be 
anything  but  destitution  and  misery  to  be  expressed. 

The  lowest  class  of  salutations,  which  merely  aim  at  giving 
pleasant  bodily  sensations,  merge  into  the  civilities  which  we  see 
exchanged  among  the  lower  animals.  Such  are  patting,  stroking, 
kissing,  pressing  noses,  blowing,  sniffing,  and  so  forth.  The 
often  described  sign  of  pleasure  or  greeting  of  the  Indians  of 
North  America,  by  rubbing  each  other's  arms,  breasts,  and 
stomachs,  and  their  own,2  is  similar  to  the  Central  African 
custom,  of  two  men  clasping  each  other's  arms  with  both  hands, 
and  rubbing  them  up  and  down,3  and  that  of  stroking  one's  own 
face  with  another's  hand  or  foot,  in  Polynesia;4  and  the  pattings 
and  slappings  of  the  Fuegians  belong  to  the  same  class.  Darwin 
describes  the  way  in  which  noses  are  pressed  in  New  Zealand, 
with  details  which  have  escaped  less  accurate  observers.5  It  is 
curious  that  Linnaeus  found  the  salutation  by  touching  noses  in 
the  Lapland  Alps.  People  did  not  kiss,  but  put  noses  together.6 
The  Andaman  Islanders  salute  by  blowing  into  another's  hand 
with  a  cooing  murmur.7  Charlevoix  speaks  of  an  Indian  tribe 
on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  who  blew  into  one  another's  ears ; 8  and 
Du  Chaillu  describes  himself  as  having  been  blown  upon  in 
Africa.9  Sir  S.  Baker  describes  the  expression  of  thanks  among 
the  Kytch  of  the  White  Nile,  by  holding  their  benefactor's  hand 
and  pretending  to  spit  upon  it.10  Natural  expressions  of  joy, 

1  Micah  i.   8.     Ezekiel  xxiv.    17.     Herod,   ii.    85.     Rev.  J.   Roberts,    'Oriental 
Illustrations  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures,'  2nd  ed.     London,  1844,  p.  492,  etc. 
a  Charlevoix,  vol.  iii.  p.  16  ;  vol.  vi.  p.  189,  etc. 

3  Burton,  'Lake  Regions  of  Central  Africa  ; '  London,  1860,  vol.  ii.  p.  69. 
*  Cook,  '  Third  Voy.,'  vol.  i.  p.  179. 

5  Dai-win,  'Journal  of  Res.,'  etc. ;  London,  1860,  pp.  205,  423.    See  W.v.  Humboldt, 
'Kawi-Spr.'  vol.  i.  p.  77. 

6  Linnaeus,   'Tour  in  Lapland;'  London,   1811,  vol.  L   p.    315.     See  Kotzebue, 
'Voyage,'  vol.  i.  p.  192  (Esquimaux). 

7  Mouat,  '  Andaman  Islanders  ; '  London,  1863,  pp.  279-80. 

8  Charlevoix,  vol.  iii.  p.  16. 

9  Du  Chaillu,  '  Equatorial  Africa  ;'  London,  1861,  pp.  393,  430. 

10  Baker,  '  Albert  JS'yanza  ; '  London,  1866,  vol.  L  p.  72. 

E  2 


52  THE   GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

guch  as  clapping  hands  in  Africa,1  and  jumping  up  and  down 
in  Tierra  del  Fuego,2  are  made  to  do  duty  as  signs  of  friendship 

or  greeting. 

There  are  a  number  of  well-known  gestures  which  are  hard 
explain.  Such  are  various  signs  of  hatred  and  contempt,  such 
as  lolling  out  the  tongue,  which  is  a  universal  sign,  though  it  is 
not  clear  why  it  should  he  so,  biting  the  thumb,  making  the 
sign  of  the  stork's  bill  behind  another's  back  (ciconiamfacere), 
and  the  sign  known  as  "  taking  a  sight,"  which  was  as  common 
at  the  time  of  Rabelais  as  it  is  now. 

In  modern  India,  as  in  ancient  Rome,  only  a  part  of  the  signs 
we  find  described  are  such  as  can  be  set  down  at  once  to  their 
proper  origin.3  One  of  the  common  gestures  in  India,  especially, 
has  puzzled  many  Europeans.  This  is  the  way  of  beckoning 
with  the  hand  to  call  a  person,  which  looks  as  though  it  weiv 
the  reverse  of  the  movement  which  we  use  for  the  purpose.  I 
have  heard,  on  native  authority,  that  the  apparent  difference 
consists  in  the  palm  being  outwards  instead  of  inwards,  but  a 
remark  made  about  the  natives  of  the  south  of  India  by  Mr. 
Roberts,  who  seems  to  have  been  an  extremely  good  observer, 
suggests  another  explanation :  "  The  way  in  which  the  people 
beckon  for  a  person,  is  to  lift  up  the  right  hand  to  its  extreme 
height,  and  then  bring  it  down  with  a  sudden  sweep  to  the 
ground."4  It  is  evident  that  to  make  a  sort  of  abbreviation  of 
this  movement,  as  by  doing  it  from  the  wrist  or  elbow  instead  of 
from  the  shoulder,  would  be  a  natural  sign,  and  yet  would  be 
liable  to  be  taken  for  our  gesture  of  motioning  away.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  something  of  this  kind  has  led  to  the  following  descrip- 
tion of  the  way  of  beckoning  in  New  Zealand : — "  In  signals  for 
those  some  way  off  to  come  near,  the  arm  is  waved  in  an  exactly 
opposite  direction  to  that  adopted  by  Englishmen  for  similar 
purposes,  and  the  natives  in  giving  silent  assent  to  anything, 
elevate  the  head  and  chin  in  place  of  nodding  acquiescence."6 

1  Burton,  'Central  Africa,'  vol.  ii.  p.  69. 
1  Wilkes,  U.  8.  Exploring  Exp. ;  London,  1845,  vol.  i.  p.  127. 
1  Piin.  xi.  103.     Koberts,  'Oriental  lllustr.,'  pp.  87,  90,  285,  293,  461,  475,  491. 
4  'Oriental  lllustr.'  p.  396. 

•  A.  S.  Thomson,  '  The  Story  of  New  Zealand  ;'  London,  1859,  vol.  i.  p.  209.  See 
Cook,  'First  Voy.  H.,'  voL  ii.  p.  311. 


THE   GESTURE-LANGUAGE.  53 

The  contrast  between  yes  and  no  is  variously  made  by  different 
nations.  The  ancient  Greeks  used  to  nod  (Karai>evu>,  eTrivewo) 
for  yes,  but  to  throw  back  the  head  (avavevv)  for  no;  these 
signs  may  still  be  seen  in  Italy.1  The  Turk  throws  his  head 
back  with  a  cluck  to  express  no,  but  can  express  yes  by  a 
movement  like  our  shaking  the  head.3  The  Siamese  priest's 
gestures  in  giving  evidence,  are  raising  his  hat  or  fan  to  express 
yes,  and  lowering  it  to  express  no.3 

Of  signs  used  to  avert  the  evil  eye,  some  are  connected  with 
the  ancient  counter-charms,  and  others  are  of  uncertain  meaning, 
such  as  the  very  common  one  represented  in  old  Greek  and 
Eonian  amulets,  the  hand  closed  all  but  the  fore-finger  and  little 
finger,  which  are  held  out  straight.  When  King  Ferdinand  I. 
of  Naples  used  to  appear  in  public,  he  might  be  seen  to  put  his 
hand  from  time  to  time  into  his  pocket.  Those  who  understood 
his  ways  knew  that  he  was  clenching  his  fist  with  the  thumb 
stuck  out  between  the  first  and  second  fingers,  to  avert  the 
effect  of  a  glance  of  the  evil  eye  that  some  one  in  the  street  might 
have  cast  on  him. 

Enough  has  now  been  said  to  show  that  gesture-language  is 
a  natural  mode  of  expression  common  to  mankind  in  general. 
Moreover,  this  is  true  in  a  different  sense  to  that  in  which  we  say 
that  spoken  language  is  common  to  mankind,  including  under 
the  word  language  many  hundreds  of  mutually  unintelligible 
tongues,  for  the  gesture-language  is  essentially  one  and  the  same 
in  all  times  and  all  countries.  It  is  true  that  the  signs  used  in 
different  places,  and  by  different  persons,  are  only  partially  the 
same ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  same  idea  may  be  ex- 
pressed in  signs  in  very  many  ways,  and  that  it  is  not  necessary 
that  all  should  choose  the  same.  How  the  choice  of  gesture- 
signs  is  influenced  by  education  and  habit  of  life  is  well  shown 
by  a  story  told  somewhere  of  a  boy,  himself  deaf-and-dumb, 
who  paid  a  visit  to  a  Deaf-and-Dumb  Asylum.  When  he 
was  gone,  the  inmates  expressed  to  the  master  their  disgust  at 
his  ways.  He  talked  an  ugly  language,  they  said;  when  he 

1  Liddell  and  Scott ;  Liebrecht  in  Heidelb.  Jahrb.,  1868,  p.  325. 

2  Bastian,  vol.  i.  p.  395. 

*  Low  in  Journ.  Ind.  Arcliip.,  vol.  i.  p.  356. 


54  THE  GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 

wanted  to  show  that  something  was  black,  he  pointed  to  his 
dirty  nails. 

The  best  evidence  of  the  unity  of  the  gesture -language  is  the 
ease  and  certainty  with  which  any  savage  from  any  country  can 
understand  and  be  understood  in  a  deaf-and-dumb  school.  A 
native  of  Hawaii  is  taken  to  an  American  Institution,  and  begins 
at  once  to  talk  in  signs  with  the  children,  and  to  tell  about  his 
voyage  and  the  country  he  came  from.  A  Chinese,  who  had 
fallen  into  a  state  of  melancholy  from  long  want  of  society,  is 
quite  revived  by  being  taken  to  the  same  place,  where  he  can 
talk  in  gestures  to  his  heart's  content.  A  deaf-and-dumb  lad 
named  Collins  is  taken  to  see  some  Laplanders,  who  were 
carried  about  to  be  exhibited,  and  writes  thus  to  his  fellow- 
pupils  about  the  Lapland  woman: — "Mr.  Joseph  Humphreys 
told  me  to  speak  to  her  by  signs,  and  she  understood  me. 
When  Cunningham  was  with  me,  asking  Lapland  woman,  and 
she  frowned  at  him  and  me.  She  did  not  know  we  were  deaf- 
and-dumb,  but  afterwards  she  knew  that  we  were  deaf-and-dumb, 
then  she  spoke  to  us  about  reindeers  and  elks  and  smiled  at  us 
much."1 

The  study  of  the  gesture-language  is  not  only  useful  as  giving 
us  some  insight  into  the  workings  of  the  human  mind.  We  can 
only  judge  what  other  men's  minds  are  like  by  observing  their 
outward  manifestations,  and  similarity  in  the  most  direct  .and 
simple  kind  of  utterance  is  good  evidence  of  similarity  in  the 
mental  processes  which  it  communicates  to  the  outer  world.  As, 
then,  the  gesture-language  appears  not  to  be  specifically  affected 
by  differences  in  the  race  or  climate  of  those  who  use  it,  the 
shape  of  their  skulls  and  the  colour  of  their  skins,  its  evidence, 
so  far  as  it  goes,  bears  against  the  supposition  that  specific 
differences  are  traceable  among  the  various  races  of  man,  at  least 
in  the  more  elementary  processes  of  the  mind. 

1  Dr.  Orpen,  '  The  Contrast,'  p.  177. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

GESTURE-LANGUAGE    AND    WORD-LANGUAGE. 

WE  know  very  little  about  the  origin  of  language,  but  the 
subject  has  so  great  a  charm  for  the  human  mind  that  the  want 
of  evidence  has  not  prevented  the  growth  of  theory  after  theory ; 
and  all  sorts  of  men,  with  all  sorts  of  qualifications,  have  solved 
the  problem,  each  in  his  own  fashion.  We  may  read,  for 
instance,  Dante's  treatise  on  the  vulgar  tongue,  and  wonder,  not 
that,  as  he  lived  in  mediaeval  times,  his  argument  is  but  a 
mediaeval  argument,  but  that  in  the  '  Paradiso,'  seemingly  on 
the  strength  of  some  quite  futile  piece  of  evidence,  he  should 
have  made  Adam  enunciate  a  notion  which  even  in  this  nineteenth 
century  has  hardly  got  fairly  hold  of  the  popular  mind,  namely, 
that  there  is  no  primitive  language  of  man  to  be  found  existing 
on  earth. 

"  La  lingua  ch'  io  parlai  fu  tatta  spenta 

Innanzi  che  all'  ovra  inconsumable 

Fosse  la  gente  di  Nembrotte  attenta. 
Che  nullo  affetto  mai  raziocinabile 

Per  lo  piacere  uman  che  rinnovella, 

Seguendo  !1  cielo,  sempre  fu  durabile. 
Opera  naturale  e  ch'  uom  favella : 

Ma  cosi,  o  cosl,  natura  lascia 

Poi  fare  a  voi  secondo  che  v'  abbella. 
Pria  ch'  io  scendessi  all'  infernale  ambascia 

EL  s'  appellava  in  terra  il  sommo  Bene 

On^e  vien  la  letizia  che  mi  fascia : 
ELI  si  chiamo  poi :  e  cio  conviene : 

Che  1'  uso  de'  mortali  e  come  fronda 

In  ramo,  che  sen  va,  ed  altra  viene." 

In  Mr.  Pollock's  translation  : — 

"  The  Language,  which  1  spoke,  was  quite  worn  out 
Before  unto  the  work  impossible 


5G  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

The  race  of  Nimrod  had  their  labour  turned ; 

For  no  production  of  the  intellect 

Which  is  renewed  at  pleasure  of  mankind, 

Following  the  sky,  was  durable  for  aye. 

It  is  a  natural  thing  that  man  should  speak ; 

But  whether  this  or  that  way.  nature  leaves 

To  your  election,  as  it  pleases  you. 

Ere  I  descended  on  the  infernal  road, 

Upon  earth,  EL  was  called  the  Highest  Good, 

From  whom  the  enjoyment  flows  that  me  surrounds; 

And  was  called  ELI  after ;  as  was  meet : 

For  mortal  usages  are  like  a  leaf 

Upon  a  bough,  which  goes,  and  others  come." 

Since  Dante's  time,  how  many  men  of  genius  have  set  the 
whole  power  of  their  minds  against  the  problem,  and  to  how 
little  purpose.  Steinthal's  masterly  summary  of  these  specula- 
tions in  his  '  Origin  of  Language  '  is  quite  melancholy  reading. 
It  may  indeed  be  brought  forward  as  evidence  to  prove  something 
that  matters  far  more  to  us  than  the  early  history  of  language, 
that  it  is  of  as  little  use  to  be  a  good  reasoner  when  there  are  no 
facts  to  reason  upon,  as  it  is  to  be  a  good  bricklayer  when  there 
are  no  bricks  to  build  with. 

At  the  root  of  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  language  lies  the 
question,  why  certain  words  were  originally  used  to  represent 
certain  ideas,  or  mental  conditions,  or  whatever  we  may  call 
them.  The  word  may  have  been  used  for  the  idea  because  it 
had  an  evident  fitness  to  be  used  rather  than  another  word,  or 
because  some  association  of  ideas,  which  we  cannot  now  trace, 
may  have  led  to  its  choice.  That  the  selection  of  words  to 
express  ideas  was^ever  purely  arbitrary,  that  is  to  say,  such  that 
it  would  have  been  consistent  with  its  principle  to  exchange  any 
two  words  as  we  may  exchange  algebraic  symbols,  or  to  shake 
up  a  number  of  words  in  a  bag  and  re-distribute  them  at  random 
among  the  ideas  they  represented,  is  a  supposition  opposed  to 
such  knowledge  as  we  have  of  the  formation  of  language.  And 
not  in  language  only,  but  in  the  study  of  the  whole  range  of  art 
and  belief  among  mankind,  the  principle  is  continually  coming 
more  and  more  clearly  into  view,  that  man  has  not  only  a  definite 
reason,  but  very  commonly  an  assignable  one,  for  everything 
that  he  does  and  believes. 

In  the  only  departments  of  language  of  whose  origin  we  have 


GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE.  57 

any  certain  notion,  as  for  instance  in  the  class  of  pure  imitative 
words  such  as  "  cuckoo,'"  "peewit,'"  and  the  like,  the  connection 
between  word  and  idea  is  not  only  real  hut  evident.  It  is  true 
that  different  imitative  words  may  be  used  for  the  same  sound, 
as  for  instance  the  tick  of  a  clock  is  called  also  pick  in  Germany ; 
but  both  these  words  have  an  evident  resemblance  to  the  un- 
writeable  sound  that  a  clock  really  makes.  So  the  Tahitian 
word  for  the  crowing  of  cocks,  aaoa,  might  be  brought  over  as 
a  rival  to  "  cock-a-doodle-do !  "  There  is,  moreover,  a  class  of 
words  of  undetermined  extent,  which  seem  to  have  been  either 
chosen  in  some  measure  with  a  view  to  the  fitness  of  their  sound 
to  represent  their  sense,  or  actually  modified  by  a  reflection  of 
sound  into  sense.  Some  such  process  seems  to  have  made  the 
distinction  between  to  crash,  to  crush,  to  crunch,  and  to  craunch, 
and  to  have  differenced  ioflif),  to  flap,  to  flop,  and  to  flump,  out 
of  a  common  root.  Some  of  these  words  must  be  looked  for  in 
dictionaries  of  "provincialisms,"  but  they  are  none  the  less 
English  for  that.  In  pure  interjections,  such  as  oh !  ah  !  the 
connection  between  the  actual  pronunciation  and  the  idea  which 
is  to  be  conveyed  is  perceptible  enough,  though  it  is  hardly 
more  possible  to  define  it  than  it  is  to  convey  in  writing  their 
innumerable  modulations  of  sound  and  sense. 

But  if  there  was  a  living  connection  between  word  and  idea 
outside  the  range  of  these  classes  of  words,  it  seems  dead  now. 
We  might  just  as  well  use  "  inhabitable"  in  the  French  sense 
as  in  that  of  modern  English.  In  fact  Shakspeare  and  other 
writers  do  so,  as  where  Norfolk  says  in  '  Kichard  the  Second,' 

"  Even  to  the  frozen  ridges  of  the  Alps, 
Or  any  other  ground  inhabitable." 

It  makes  no  practical  difference  to  the  world  at  large,  that  our 
word  to  "  rise  "  belongs  to  the  same  root  as  Old  German  risan, 
to  fall,  French  arriser,  to  let  fall,  whichever  of  the  two  meanings 
may  have  come  first,  nor  that  black,  Uanc,  bleich,  to  bleach,  to 
blacken,  Anglo-Saxon  blcec,  Wac=black,  bldc=pnle,  white,  come 
so  nearly  together  in  sound.  It  has  been  plausibly  conjectured 
that  the  reversal  of  the  meaning  of  to  "rise"  may  have  happened 
through  a  preposition  being  prefixed  to  change  the  sense,  and 


58  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

dropping  off  again,  leaving  the  word  with  its  altered  meaning,1 
while  if  black  is  related  to  German  blaken,  to  hum,  and  has  the 
sense  of  "  charred,  hurnt  to  a  coal,"  and  blanc  has  that  of 
shining,2  a  common  origin  may  possibly  he  forthcoming  for  both 
sets  among  the  family  of  words  which  includes  blaze,  fulf/eo, 
fl<i<iro,  <£Ae'yo>,  <£Ao£,  Sanskrit  bhiai),  and  so  fortn.  But  explana- 
tions of  this  kind  have  no  hearing  on  the  practical  use  of  such 
words  by  mankind  at  "large,  who  take  what  is  given  them  and 
ask  no  questions.  Indeed,  however  much  such  a  notion  may 
vex  the  souls  of  etymologists,  there  is  a  great  deal  to  he  said  for 
the  view  that  much  of  the  accuracy  of  our  modern  languages  is 
due  to  their  having  so  far  "lost  consciousness"  of  the  derivation 
of  their  words,  which  thus  become  like  counters  or  algebraic 
symbols,  good  to  represent  just  what  they  are  set  down  to  mean. 
Archeology  is  a  very  interesting  and  instructive  study,  but  when 
it  comes  to  exact  argument,  it  may  be  that  the  distinctness  of 
our  apprehension  of  what  a  word  means,  is  not  always  increased 
by  a  misty  recollection  hovering  about  it  in  our  minds,  that  it 
or  its  family  once  meant  something  else.  For  such  purposes, 
what  is  required  is  not  so  much  a  knowledge  of  etymology,  as 
accurate  definition,  and  the  practice  of  checking  words  by 
realizing  the  things  and  actions  they  are  used  to  denote. 

It  is  as  bearing  on  the  question  of  the  relation  between  idea 
and  word  that  the  study  of  the  gesture-language  is  of  particular 
interest.  We  have  in  it  a  method  of  human  utterance  indepen- 
dent of  speech,  and  carried  on  through  a  different  medium,  in 
which,  as  has  been  said,  the  connection  between  idea  and  sign 
has  hardly  ever  been  broken,  or  even  lost  sight  of  for  a  moment. 
The  gesture-language  is  in  fact  a  system  of  utterance  to  which 
the  description  of  the  primaeval  language  in  the  Chinese  myth 
may  be  applied  ;  "  Suy-jin  first  gave  names  to  plants  and  animals, 
and  these  names  were  so  expressive,  that  by  the  name  of  a  thing 
it  was  known  what  it  was."3 

To  speak  first  of  the  comparison  of  gesture-signs  with  words, 

1  Jacob  Grimm,  '  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  Sprache  ; '  Leipzig,  1848,  p.  664. 
3  See  J.  and  W.  Grimm,  '  Deutsches  Worterbuch,'  s.  vv.  black,  blaken,  Hick,  etc. 
Diez,  Worterb.,  s.  v.  bianco. 

3  Goguet,  'De  1'Origine  des  Loix,'  etc.;  Paris,  1758,  voL  iii.  p.  322. 


GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE.  59 

it  has  been  already  observed  that  the  gesture-language  uses  two 
different  processes.  It  brings  objects  and  actions  bodily  into  the 
conversation,  by  pointing  to  them  or  looking  at  them,  and  it  also 
suggests  by  imitation  of  actions,  or  by  "  pictures  in  the  air,"  and 
these  two  processes  may  be  used  separately  or  combined.  This 
division  may  be  clumsy  and  in  some  cases  inaccurate,  but  it  is 
the  best  I  have  succeeded  in  making.  I  will  now  examine  more 
closely  the  first  division,  in  which  objects  are  brought  directly 
before  the  mind. 

When  Mr.  Lemuel  Gulliver  visited  the  school  of  languages  in 
Lagado,  he  was  made  acquainted  Avith  a  scheme  for  improving 
language  by  abolishing  all  words  whatsoever.  Words  being  only 
names  for  things,  people  were  to  carry  the  things  themselves 
about,  instead  of  wasting  their  breath  in  talking  about  them. 
The  learned  adopted  the  scheme,  and  sages  might  be  seen  in  the 
streets  bending  under  their  heavy  sacks  of  materials  for  conver- 
sation, or  unpacking  their  loads  for  a  talk.  This  was  found 
somewhat  troublesome.  "  But  for  short  conversations,  a  man 
may  carry  implements  in  his  pockets,  and  under  his  arms,  enough 
to  supply  him;  and  in  his  house,  he  cannot  be  at  a  loss.  There- 
fore the  room  where  the  company  meet  who  practise  this  art,  is 
full  of  all  things,  ready  at  hand,  requisite  to  furnish  matter  for 
this  kind  of  artificial  converse." 

The  traveller  records  that  this  plan  did  not  come  into  general 
use,  owing  to  the  ignorant  opposition  of  the  women  and  the 
common  people,  who  threatened  to  raise  a  rebellion  if  they  were 
not  allowed  to  speak  with  their  tongues  after  the  manner  of  their 
forefathers.  But  this  system  of  talking  by  objects  is  in  sober 
earnest  an  important  part  of  the  gesture-language,  and  in  its 
early  development  among  the  deaf-and-dumb,  perhaps  the  most 
important.  Is  there  then  anything  in  spoken  language  that  can 
be  compared  with  the  gestures  by  which  this  process  is  performed? 
Quintilian  incidentally  answers  the  question.  "As  for  the  hands 
indeed,  without  which  action  would  be  maimed  and  feeble,  one 
can  hardly  say  how  many  movements  they  have,  when  they  almost 
follow  the  whole  stock  of  words;  for  the  other  members  help  the 
speaker,  but  they,  I  may  almost  say,  themselves  speak."  .  .  .  "Do 
they  not  in  pointing  out  places  and  persons,  fulfil  the  purpose  of 


60  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

adrerbs  and  pronouns  ?  so  that  in  so  great  a  diversity  of  tongues 
among  all  people  and  nations  this  seems  to  me  the  common  lan- 
guage of  all  mankind?" — "Manus  vero,  sine  quibus  trunca  esset 
actio  ac  debilis,  vix  dici  potest,  quot  motus  habeant,  quum  paene 
ipsam  verborum  copiam  persequantur ;  nam  caeterae  partes 
loquentem  adjuvant,  has,  prope  est  ut  dicam,  ipsse  loquuntur.  . 
.  .  .  Non  in  demonstrandis  locis  ac  pcrsonis  adverbiorum  atque 
pronominum  obtinent  vicem  ?  ut  in  tanta  per  omnes  gentes 
nationesque  linguae  diversitate  hie  mihi  omnium  hominum  com- 
munis  sermo  videatur."1 

Where  a  man  stands  is  to  him  the  centre  of  the  universe,  and 
he  refers  the  position  of  any  object  to  himself,  as  before  or  behind 
him,  above  or  below  him,  and  so  on;  or  he  makes  his  fore-finger 
issue,  as  it  were,  as  a  radius  from  this  imaginary  centre,  and, 
pointing  in  any  direction  into  space,  says  that  the  thing  he  points 
out  is  there.  He  defines  the  position  of  an  object  somewhat  as  it 
is  done  in  Analytical  Geometry,  using  either  a  radius  vector,  to 
which  the  demonstrative  pronoun  may  partly  be  compared,  or 
referring  it  to  three  axes,  as,  in  front  or  behind,  to  the  right  or 
left,  above  or  below.  His  body,  however,  not  being  a  point,  but 
a  structure  of  considerable  size,  he  often  confuses  his  terms,  as 
when  he  uses  here  for  some  spot  only  comparatively  near  him, 
instead  of  making  it  come  towards  the  same  imaginary  centre 
whence  there  started.  He  can  in  thought  shift  his  centre  of  co- 
ordinates and  the  position  of  his  axes,  and  imagining  himself  in 
the  place  of  another  person,  or  even  of  an  inanimate  object,  can 
describe  the  position  of  himself  or  anything  else  with  respect  to 
them.  Movement  and  direction  come  before  his  mind  as  a  real 
or  imaginary  going  from  one  place  to  another,  and  such  move- 
ment gives  him  the  idea  of  time  which  the  deaf-and-dumb  man 
expresses  by  drawing  a  line  with  his  finger  along  his  arm  from 
one  point  to  another,  and  the  speaker  by  a  similar  adaptation  of 
prepositions  or  adverbs  of  place. 

I  do  not  wish  to  venture  below  the  surface  of  this  difficult  subject, 

1  Quint.,  Inst.  Orat.,  lib.  xi.  3,  85,  xeqq.  "Luther  fiihrt  an  das  ist  mein  leib  und 
bemerkt  (label  folgendes,  '  das  ist  ein  pronomen  und  lautet  der  buchstab  a  drinnen 
stark  und  lang,  als  ware  es  geschriebeu  also,  dahas,  wie  ein  schwabisch  oder  algau- 
wisch  daas  lautet,  und  wer  es  horet,  dem  ist  als  stehe  ein  finger  dabei  der  darauf 
wige'"  (Grimm,  'D.  W.,'  t.  v.  "der"). 


GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND   WORD-LANGUAGE.  Cl 

for  an  elaborate  examination  of  which  I  would  especially  refer  to 
the  researches  of  Professor  Pott,  of  Halle.1  But  it  may  be  worth 
\vhile  to  call  attention  to  an  apparent  resemblance  of  two  divisions 
of  the  root-words  of  our  Aryan  languages  to  the  two  great  classes 
of  gesture-signs.  Professor  Max  Miiller  divides  the  Sanskrit 
root-forms  into  two  classes,  the  predicative  roots,  such  as  to 
shine,  to  extend,  and  so  forth;  and  the  demonstrative  roots,  "a 
small  class  of  independent  radicals,  not  predicative  in  the  usual 
sense  of  the  word,  but  simply  pointing,  simply  expressive  of 
existence  under  certain  more  or  less  definite,  local  or  temporal 
prescriptions."2  If  we  take  from  among  the  examples  given, 
here,  there,  this,  that,  thou,  he,  as  types,  we  have  a  division  of 
the  elements  of  the  Sanskrit  language  to  which  a  division  of  the 
signs  of  the  deaf-mute  into  predicative  and  demonstrative  would 
at  least  roughly  correspond.  Many  centuries  ago  the  Indian 
grammarians  made  desperate  eiforts  to  bring  pronouns  and  verbs, 
as  the  Germans  say,  "under  one  hat."  They  deduced  the  demon- 
strative ta  from  tan,  to  stretch,  and  the  relative  ya  from  yag,  to 
worship.  Unity  is  pleasant  to  mankind,  who  are  often  ready  to 
sacrifice  things  of  more  consequence  than  etymology  for  it.  But 
perhaps,  after  all,  the  world  may  not  have  been  constructed  for 
the  purpose  of  providing  for  the  human  mind  just  what  it  is 
pleased  to  ask  for.  Of  course,  any  full  comparison  of  speech 
and  the  gesture-language  would  have  to  go  into  the  hard  problem 
of  the  relation  of  prepositions  to  adverbs  and  pronouns  on  the 
one  hand,  and  to  verb-roots  on  the  other.  As  to  this  matter,  I 
can  only  say  that  the  educated  deaf-mute  puts  his  right  fore- 
finger into  the  palm  of  his  left  hand  to  say  "in,"  takes  it  out 
again  to  say  "  out,"  puts  his  right  hand  above  or  below  his  left 
to  say  "above  "  or  "  below,"  etc.,  which  are  imitative  signs,  very 
likely  learnt  from  the  teacher.  But  the  natural  gestures  with 
which  he  shows  that  anything  is  "  above  me,"  "  behind  me," 
and  so  on,  are  of  a  more  direct  character,  and  are  rather  demon- 
strative than  predicative. 

The  class  of  imitative  and  suggestive  signs  in  the  gesture- 
language  corresponds  in  some  measure  with  the  Chinese  words 

1  Pott,   '  Etymologisclie  Forsclmngen,'  new  ed. ;  Lemgo  and  Detmold,  1859,  etc., 
vol.  i  2  Miiller,  Lectures,  3rd  ed. ;  London,  1862,  p.  272. 


62  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

which  are  neither  verbs,  substantives,  adjectives,  nor  adverbs, 
but  answer  the  purpose  of  all  of  them,  as,  for  instance,  ta, 
meaning  great,  greatness,  to  make  great,  to  be  great,  greatly  j1 
or  they  may  be  compared  with  what  Sanskrit  roots  would  be  if 
they  were  used  as  they  stand  in  the  dictionaries,  without  any 
inflections.  In  the  gesture-language  there  seems  no  distinction 
between  the  adjective,  the  adverb  which  belongs  to  it,  the  sub- 
stantive, and  the  verb.  To  say,  for  instance,  "  Tho  pear  is 
green,"  the  deaf-and-dumb  child  first  eats  an  imaginary  pear, 
and  then  using  the  back  of  the  flat  left  hand  as  a  ground,  he 
makes  the  fingers  of  the  right  hand  grow  up  on  the  edge  of  it 
like  blades  of  grass.  We  might  translate  the  signs  as  "  pear- 
grass  ;  "  but  they  have  quite  as  good  a  right  to  be  classed  as 
verbs,  for  they  are  signs  of  eating  in  a  peculiar  way,  and  growing. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  have  recourse  to  Asiatic  languages  for 
analogies  of  this  kind  with  the  gesture-language.  The  sub- 
stantive-adjective is  common  enough  in  English,  and  indeed  in 
most  other  languages.  In  such  compounds  as  chestnut-horse, 
spoon-bill,  iron-stone,  feather-grass,  we  have  the  substantive  put 
to  express  a  quality  which  distinguishes  it.  Our  own  language, 
which  has  gone  so  far  towards  assimilating  itself  to  the  Chinese 
by  dropping  inflection  and  making  syntax  do  its  work,  has 
developed  to  a  great  extent  a  concretism  which  is  like  that  of 
the  Chinese,  who  makes  one  word  do  duty  for  "  stick  "  and  "  to 
beat  with  a  stick,"  or  of  the  deaf-mute,  whose  sign  for  "  butter" 
or  the  act  of  "  buttering  "  is  the  same,  the  imitation  of  spreading 
with  his  finger  on  the  palm  of  his  hand.  To  butter  bread,  to 
cudgel  a  man,  to  oil  machinery,  to  pepper  a  dish,  and  scores  of 
such  expressions,  involve  action  and  instrument  in  one  word,  and 
that  word  a  substantive  treated  as  the  root  or  crude  form  of  a 
verb.  Such  expressions  are  concretisms,  picture-words,  gesture- 
words,  as  much  as  the  deaf-and-dumb  man's  one  sign  for 
"butter  "  and  "buttering."  To  separate  these  words,  and  to 
say  that  there  is  one  butter,  a  noun,  and  another  butter,  a  verb, 
may  be  convenient  for  the  dictionary ;  but  to  pretend  that  there 
is  a  real  distinction  between  the  words  is  a  mere  grammatical 
juggle,  like  saying  that  the  noun  man  has  a  nominative  case 

Endlicher,  'Chin.  Gramm.';  Vienna,  1845,  p.  168. 


GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE.  G3 

man,  and  an  objective  case  which  is  also  man,  and  much  of  the 
rest  of  the  curious  system  of  putting  new  wine  into  old  bottles, 
and  stretching  the  organism  of  a  live  language  upon  a  dead 
framework,  which  is  commonly  taught  as  English  Grammar. 

The  reference  of  substantives  to  a  verb-root  in  the  Aryan 
languages  and  elsewhere  is  thoroughly  in  harmony  with  the 
spirit  of  the  gesture-language.  Thus,  the  horse  is  the  neigher ; 
stone  is  what  stands,  is  stable  :  water  is  that  which  waves, 
undulates;  the  mouse  is  the  stealer ;  an  age  is  what  goes  on ; 
the  oar  is  what  makes  to  go ;  the  serpent  is  the  creeper ;  and 
so  on  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  etymologies  of  these  words  lead  us 
back  to  the  actions  of  neighing,  standing,  waving,  stealing,  etc. 
Now,  the  deaf-and-dumb  Kruse  tells  us  that  even  to  the  mute 
who  has  no  means  of  communication  but  signs,  "  the  bird  is 
what  flies,  the  fish  what  swims,  the  plant  what  sprouts  out  of 
the  earth."1  It  may  be  said  that  action,  and  form  resulting  from 
action,  form  the  staple  of  that  part  of  the  gesture-language  which 
occupies  itself  with  suggesting  to  the  mind  that  which  it  does 
not  bring  bodily  before  it.  But,  though  there  is  so  much 
similarity  of  principle  in  the  formation  of  gesture-signs  and 
words,  there  is  no  general  correspondence  in  the  particular  idea 
chosen  to  name  an  object  by  in  the  two  kinds  of  utterance. 

In  the  second  place,  with  regard  to  the  syntax  of  the  gesture- 
language,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  compare  it  with  that  of  in- 
flected languages  such  as  Latin,  which  can  alter  the  form  of 
words  to  express  their  relation  to  one  another.  With  Chinese 
and  some  other  languages  of  Eastern  Asia,  and  with  English 
and  French,  etc.,  where  they  have  thrown  off  inflection,  it  may  be 
roughly  compared,  though  all  these  languages  use  at  least  gram- 
matical particles  which  have  nothing  corresponding  to  them  in 
the  gesture-language.  Now,  it  is  remarkable  to  what  an  extent 
Chinese  and  English  agree  in  doing  just  what  the  gesture- 
language  does  not.  Both  put  the  attribute  before  the  subject, 
pe  ma,  "  white  horse  ;  "  shinr/  jin,  "  holy  man ;  "  both  put  the 
actor  and  action  before  the  object,  ngo  ta  ni,  "  I  strike  thee," 
tien  sang  iu,  "  heaven  destroys  me."  The  practice  of  the 
gasture-language  is  opposed  both  to  Chinese  and  English  con- 

1  Kruse,  p.  53. 


64  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

struction,  as  these  examples  show.  "  It  seems,"  says  Steinthal, 
"  that  the  speech  of  the  Chinese  hastens  toward  the  conclusion, 
and  brings  the  end  prominently  forward.  In  the  described 
position  of  the  three  relations  of  speech  the  more  important 
member  stands  last."1  A  more  absolute  contradiction  of  the 
leading  principle  of  the  gesture-syntax  could  hardly  have  been 
formulated  in  words. 

The  theory  that  the  gesture  -language  was  the  original  lan- 
guage of  man,  and  that  speech  came  afterwards,  has  been  already 
mentioned.  We  have  no  foundation  to  build  such  a  theory  upon, 
but  there  are  several  questions  bearing  upon  the  matter  which 
are  well  worth  examining.  Before  doing  so,  however,  it  will  be 
well  to  look  a  little  more  closely  into  the  claim  of  the  gesture- 
language  to  be  considered  as  a  means  of  utterance  independent 
of  speech. 

In  the  first  place,  an  absolute  separation  between  the  two 
things  is  not  to  be  found  within  the  range  of  our  experience. 
Though  the  deaf-mute  may  not  speak  himself,  yet  the  most  of 
what  he  knows,  he  only  knows  by  means  of  speech,  for  he  learns 
from  the  gestures  of  his  parents  and  companions  what  they 
learnt  through  words.  We  speak  conventionally  of  the  unedu- 
cated deaf-and-dumb,  but  every  deaf-and-dumb  child  is  educated 
more  or  less  by  living  among  those  who  speak,  and  this  educa- 
tion begins  in  the  cradle.  And  on  the  other  hand,  no  child 
attains  to  speech  independently  of  the  gesture-language,  for  it 
is  in  great  measure  by  means  of  such  gestures  as  pointing, 
nodding,  and  so  forth,  that  language  is  first  taught. 

In  old  times,  when  the  mental  capacity  of  the  deaf-and-dumb 
was  little  known,  it  was  thought  by  the  Greeks  that  they  were 
incapable  of  education,  since  hearing,  the  sense  of  instruction, 
was  wanting  to  them.  Quite  consistent  with  this  notion  is  the 
confusion  which  runs  through  language  between  mental  stupidity, 
and  deafness,  dumbness,  and  even  blindness.  Surdits  means 
"deaf,"  and  also  "stupid;  "  a  hollow  nut  is  a  deaf-nut,  taule. 
Nuss  ;  KOH/>G'S  means  dumb,  deaf,  stupid.  "  Speechless  "  (iiifnns, 
being  a  natural  term  for  a  child,  in  a  similar  way" 


1  Steinthal,  'Charakteristik  der  hanptsachlichsten  Typen  des  SpracLbaues  ;  '  Berlin, 
1860,  p.  114,  etc. 


GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND   WORD-LANGUAGE.  65 

"dumb"  (tuny),  tumb)  becomes  in  old  German  a  common  word 
for  young,  giddy,  thoughtless,  till  at  last  "  dumb  and  wise  " 
come  to  mean  nothing  more  than  "  lads  and  grown  men,"  as 
\vhere  in  the  tournament  many  a  shock  is  heard  of  wise  and  of 
dumb,  and  the  breaking  of  the  lances  sounds  up  towards  the  sky, 

"  Yon  iriften  und  von  tumbe-n    man  horte  manegen  stoz, 
Da  der  schefte  brechen  gein  der  hoehe  doz."  * 

Even  Kant  is  to  be  found  committing  himself  to  the  opinion, 
so  amazing,  one  would  think,  to  anybody  who  has  ever  been 
inside  a  deaf-and-dumb  Institution,  that  a  born  mute  can  never 
attain  to  more  than  something  analogous  to  reason  (einem 
Analogon  der  Vernunft).2 

The  evidence  of  teachers  of  the  deaf-and-dumb  goes  to  prove, 
that  in  their  untaught  state,  or  at  least  with  only  such  small 
teaching  as  they  get  from  the  signs  of  their  relatives  and  friends, 
their  thought  is  very  limited,  but  still  it  is  human  thought, 
while  when  they  have  been  regularly  instructed  and  taught  to 
read  and  write,  their  minds  may  be  developed  up  to  about  the 
average  cultivation  of  those  who  have  had  the  power  of  speech 
from  childhood.  Even  in  a  low  state  of  education,  the  deaf-mute 
seems  to  conceive  general  ideas,  for  when  he  invents  a  sign  for 
anything,  he  applies  it  to  all  other  things  of  the  same  class,  and 
he  can  also  form  abstract  ideas  in  a  certain  way,  or  at  least  he 
knows  that  there  is  a  quality  in  which  snow  and  milk  agree,  and 
he  can  go  on  adding  other  white  things,  such  as  the  moon  and 
whitewash,  to  his  list.  He  can  form  a  proposition,  for  he  can 
make  us  understand,  and  we  can  make  him  understand,  that 
"  this  man  is  old,  that  man  is  young."  Nor  does  he  seem 
incapable  of  reasoning  in  something  like  a  syllogism,  even  when 
he  has  no  means  of  communication  but  the  gesture-language, 
and  certainly  as  soon  as  he  has  learnt  to  read  that  "  All  men  are 
mortal,  John  is  a  man,  therefore  John  is  mortal,"  he  will  show 
by  every  means  of  illustration  in  his  power,  that  he  fully 
comprehends  the  argument. 

There  is  detailed  evidence  on  record  as  to  the  state  of  mind 

1  Nibel.  N6t,  37. 

8  Kant,  '  Antliropologie  ;'  Konigsberg,  179?,  p.  49.     Schmalz,  p.  46. 

» 


CG  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

of  the  deaf  and  dumb  who  have  had  no  education  but  what 
comes  with  mere  living  among  speaking  people.  Thus  Mas- 
sieu,  the  Abbe  Sicard's  celebrated  pupil,  gave  an  account  of 
what  he  could  remember  of  his  untaught  state.  He  loved  his 
father  and  mother  much,  and  made  himself  understood  by  them 
in  signs.  There  were  six  deaf-and-dumb  children  in  the 
family,  three  boys  and  three  girls.  "  I  stayed,"  he  said,  "  at 
my  home  till  I  was  thirteen  years  and  nine  months  old,  and 
never  had  any  instruction ;  I  had  darkness  for  the  letters 
(j'avois  tenebres  pour  les  lettres).  I  expressed  my  ideas  by 
manual  signs  or  gesture.  The  signs  which  I  used  then,  to 
express  my  ideas  to  my  relatives  and  my  brothers  and  sisters, 
were  very  different  from  those  of  the  educated  deaf-and-dumb. 
Strangers  never  understood  us  when  we  expressed  our  ideas  to 
them  by  signs,  but  the  neighbours  understood  us."  He  noticed 
oxen,  horses,  vegetables,  houses,  and  so  forth,  and  remembered 
them  when  he  had  seen  them.  He  wanted  to  learn  to  read  and 
write,  and  to  go  to  school  with  the  other  boys  and  girls,  but  was 
not  allowed  to  ;  so  he  went  to  the  school  and  asked  by  signs  to 
be  taught  to  read  and  write,  but  the  master  refused  harshly,  and 
turned  him  out  of  the  school.  His  father  made  him  kneel  at 
prayers  with  the  others,  and  he  imitated  the  joining  ot  their 
hands  and  the  movement  of  their  lips,  but  thought  (as  other 
deaf-and-dumb  children  have  done)  that  they  were  worshipping 
the  sky.  "I  knew  the  numbers,"  he  said,  "  before  my  instruc- 
tion, my  fingers  had  taught  me  them.  I  did  not  know  the 
figures;  I  counted  on  my  fingers,  and  when  the  number  was 
over  ten,  I  made  notches  in  a  piece  of  wood."  When  he  was 
asked  what  he  used  to  think  people  were  doing  when  they  looked 
at  one  another  and  moved  their  lips,  he  replied  that  he  thought 
they  were  expressing  ideas,  and  in  answer  to  the  inquiry  why  he 
thought  so,  he  said  he  remembered  people  speaking  about  him 
to  his  father,  and  than  his  father  threatened  to  have  him 
punished.1 

Kruse  tells  a  very  curious  story  of  an  untaught  deaf-and-dumb 
boy.  He  was  found  by  the  police  wandering  about  Prague,  in 
1805.  He  could  not  make  himself  understood,  and  they  could 

1  Sicard,  '  Thcorie,'  vol.  ii.  p.  632,  etc. 


GESTURE-LAXOFAGE   AND   WORD-LANGUAGE.  C7 

find  out  nothing  about  him,  so  they  sent  him  to  the  deaf-and- 
dumb  Institution,  where  he  was  taught.  When  he  had  been 
sufficiently  educated  to  enable  him  to  give  accurate  answers  to 
questions  put  to  him,  he  gave  an  account  of  what  he  remem- 
bered of  his  life  previously  to  his  coming  to  the  Institution. 
His  father,  he  said,  had  a  mill,  and  of  this  mill,  the  furniture  of 
the  house,  and  the  country  round  it,  he  gave  a  precise  descrip- 
tion. He  gave  a  circumstantial  account  of  his  life  there,  how 
his  mother  and  sister  died,  his  father  married  again,  his  step- 
mother ill-treated  him,  and  he  jran  away.  He  did  not  know  his 
own  mime,  nor  what  the  mill  was  called,  .but  he  knew  it  lay 
away  from  Prague  towards  the  morning.  On  inquiry  being 
made,  the  boy's  statement  was  confirmed.  The  police  found  his 
home,  gave  him  his  name,  and  secured  his  inheritance  for  him.1 

Even  Laura  Bridgman,  who  was  blind  as  well  as  deaf-and- 
dumb,  expressed  her  feelings  by  the  signs  we  all  use,  though 
she  had  never  seen  them  made,  and  could  not  tell  that  the  by- 
standers could  observe  them.  She  would  stamp  with  delight, 
and  shudder  at  the  idea  of  a  cold  bath.  When  astonished,  she 
would  protrude  her  lips,  and  hold  up  her  hands  with  fingers 
wide  spread  out,  and  she  might  be  seen  "  biting  her  lips  with 
an  upward  contraction  of  the  facial  muscles  when  roguishly  lis- 
tening at  the  account  of  some  ludicrous  mishap,  precisely  as 
lively  persons  among  us  would  do."  While  speaking  of  a 
person,  she  would  point  to  the  spot  where  he  had  been  sitting 
when  she  last  conversed  with  him,  and  where  she  still  believed 
him  to  be.2 

Though,  however,  the  deaf-and-dumb  prove  clearly  to  us  that 
a  man  may  have  human  thought  without  being  able  to  speak, 
they  by  no  means  prove  that  he  can  think  without  any  means  of 
physical  expression.  Their  evidence  tends  the  other  way.  We 
may  read  with  profit  an  eloquent  passage  on  this  subject  by  a 
German  professor,  as,  transcendental  as  it  is,  it  is  put  in  such 
clear  terms,  that  we  may  almost  think  we  understand  it. 

"  Herein  lies  the  necessity  of  utterance,  the  representation  of 

1  Kruse,  p.  54. 

2  Lieber,  On  the  Vocal  Sounds  of  Laura  Bridgman,  in  Smitlsonian  Contrib.,  vol.  ii. ; 
Washington,  1851. 

V  2 


68  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

thought.  Thought  is  not  even  present  to  the  thinker,  till  he 
has  set  it  forth  out  of  himself.  Man,  as  an  individual  endowed 
with  sense  and  with  mind,  first  attains  to  thought,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  the  comprehension  of  himself,  in  setting  forth  out 
of  himself  the  contents  of  his  mind,  and  in  this  his  free  produc- 
tion, he  comes  to  the  knowledge  of  himself,  his  thinking  '  I.' 
He  comes  first  to  himself  in  uttering  himself." ] 

This  view  is  not  contradicted,  but  to  some  extent  supported, 
by  what  we  know  of  the  earliest  dawnings  of  thought  among 
the  deaf-and-dumb.  But  we  must  take  the  word  "  utterance  " 
in  its  larger  sense  to  include  not  speech  alone,  as  Heyse  seems 
to  do,  but  all  ways  by  which  man  can  express  his  thoughts. 
Mini  is  essentially,  what  the  derivation  of  his  name  among  our 
Aryan  race  imports,  not  "the  speaker,"  but  he  who  thinks,  he 
who  means. 

The  deaf-and-dumb  Kruse's  opinion  as  to  the  development  of 
thought  among  his  own  class,  by  and  together  with  gesture- 
signs,  has  been  already  quoted ;  how  the  qualities  which  make 
a  distinction  to  him  between  one  thing  and  another,  become, 
when  he  imitates  objects  and  actions  in  the  air  with  hands, 
fingers,  and  gestures,  suitable  signs,  which  serve  him  as  a 
means  of  fixing  ideas  in  his  mind,  and  recalling  them  to  his 
memory,  and  that  thus  he  makes  himself  signs,  which',  scanty 
and  imperfect  as  they  may  be,  yet  serve  to  open  a  way  for 
thought,  and  these  thoughts  and  signs  develope  themselves 
further  and  further.  Very  similar  is  Professor  Steinthal's 
opinion,  which,  to  some  extent,  agrees  with  the  theory  of  the 
manifestation  of  the  Ego  adopted  by  Heyse,  but  gives  a  larger 
definition  to  "utterance."  Man,  "even  when  he  has  no  per- 
ception of  sound,  can  yet  manifest  to  himself  through  any  other 
sense  that  which  is  contained  in  his  sensible  certainty,  can  set 
forth  an  object  out  of  himself,  and  separate  himself,  his  Ego, 
as  something  permanent  and  universal,  from  that  which  is 
transitory  and  particular,  even  if  he  does  not  at  once  compre- 
hend this  universal  something  in  the  form  of  the  Ego."  The 
same  writer,  after  asserting  that  mind  and  speech  are  developed 
together ;  that  the  mind  does  not  originally  make  speech,  but 

1  Heyse,  '  System  der  Sprachwissenschaft ; '  Berlin,  1856,  p.  39. 


GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND   WORD-LANGUAGE.  C9 

that  it  is  speech  ;  that  language  shapes  itself  in  mind,  or  mind 
shapes  itself  in  language,  goes  on  to  qualify  these  assertions. 
"  We  recognise  the  power  of  language  not  so  much  in  the  sound, 
as  in  the  inward  process.  But  it  is  as  certain  that  this  goes 
forward  in  the  deaf-mute,  as  it  is  that  he  is  a  human  being, 
flesh  of  human  flesh,  and  spirit  of  infinite  spirit.  But  it  goes 
forward  in  him  in  a  somewhat  different  form,"  etc.1 

Whether  the  human  mind  is  capable  of  exercising  at  all  any 
of  its  peculiarly  human  functions  without  any  means  of  utter- 
ance, or  not,  we  shall  all  admit  that  it  could  have  gone  but  very 
little  way,  could  only  just  have  passed  the  line  which  divides 
beast  from  man.  All  experience  concurs  to  prove,  that  the 
mental  powers  and  the  stock  of  ideas  of  those  human  beings 
who  have  but  imperfect  means  of  utterance,  are  imperfect  and 
scanty  in  proportion  to  those  means.  The  manner  in  which  we 
can  see  such  persons  accompanying  their  thought  with  the  utter- 
ance which  is  most  convenient  to  them,  shows  to  how  great  a 
degree  thought-  is  "  talking  to  oneself."  The  deaf-and-dumb 
gesticulate  as  they  think.  Laura  Bridgman's  fingers  worked, 
making  the  initial  movements  for  letters  of  the  finger-alphabet, 
not  only  during  her  waking  thought,  but  even  in  her  dreams. 

Spoken  language,  though  by  no  means  the  exclusive  medium 
of  thought  and  expression,  is  undoubtedly  the  best.  In  default 
of  this,  it  is  only  by  means  of  a  substitute  for  it,  namely,  alpha- 
betic writing,  that  we  succeed  in  giving  more  than  a  very  low 
development  to  the  minds  of  the  deaf-and-dumb ;  and  they  of 
course  connect  the  idea  directly  with  the  written  word,  not  as  we 
do,  the  writing  with  the  sound,  and  then  the  sound  with  the  idea. 
When  they  think  in  writing,  as  they  often  do,  the  image  of  the 
written  words  which  correspond  to  their  ideas,  must  rise  up 
before  them  in  the  "  mind's  eye."  The  Germans,  who  are  strong 
advocates  of  the  system  of  teaching  the  deaf-and-dumb  to  articu- 
late, believe  that  the  power  of  connecting  ideas  with  actual  or 
imaginary  movements  of  the  organs  of  speech,  gives  an  enormous 
increase  of  mental  power,  which  I  am,  however,  inclined  to  tMink 
is  a  good  deal  exaggerated.  Heinicke  gives  a  description  of  the 
results  of  his  teaching  his  pupils  to  articulate,  their  delight  at 
1  Steinthal,  Spr.  der  T.  pp.  907,  909. 


70  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

being  able  to  communicate  their  ideas  in  this  new  way,  and  the 
increased  intelligence  which  appeared  in  the  expression  of  their 
faces.  As  soon,  he  says,  as  the  born-mute  is  sufficiently  taught 
to  enable  him  to  increase  his  stock  of  ideas  by  the  power  of 
naming  them,  he  begins  to  talk  aloud  in  his  sleep,  and  when 
this  happens,  it  shows  that  the  power  of  thinking  in  words  has 
taken  root.1  Heinicke  was,  however,  an  enthusiast  for  his 
system  of  teaching,  and  in  practice  it  is  I  believe  generally 
found  that  articulation  does  not  displace  gesture-signs  and 
written  language  as  a  medium  of  thought ;  and  certainly,  the 
deaf-and-dumb  who  can  speak,  very  much  prefer  the  sign 
language  for  practical  use  among  themselves.  Of  course,  no 
one  doubts  that  it  is  desirable  that  the  children  should  be  taught 
to  speak,  and  to  read  from  the  lips,  especially  when  the  deaf- 
ness is  not  total :  but  the  question  whether  it  is  worth  while  to 
devote  to  this  object  a  large  proportion  of  the  few  years'  instruc- 
tion which  is  given  to  the  poorer  pupils,  is  not  yet  a  settled  one 
among  instructors.  It  is  asserted  in  Germany,  that  a  want  of 
the  natural  use  of  the  lungs  promotes  the  tendency  to  consump- 
tion, which  is  very  common  among  the  deaf-and-dumb,  and  that 
teaching  them  to  articulate  tends  to  counteract  this.  This 
sounds  probable  enough,  though  I  do  not  find,  even  in  Schmalz, 
any  sufficient  evidence  to  prove  it,  but  at  any  rate,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  deaf-and-dumb  should  be  encouraged  to  use 
their  lungs  in  shouting  at  their  play,  as  they  naturally  do. 

It  is  quite  clear  that  the  loss  of  the  powers  of  hearing  and 
speech  is  a  loss  to  the  mind  which  no  substitute  can  fully 
replace.  Children  who  have  learnt  to  speak  and  afterwards 
become  deaf,  lose  the  power  of  thinking  in  inward  language,  and 
become  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the  same  as  those  who  could 
never  hear  at  all,  unless  great  pains  are  taken  to  keep  up  and 
increase  their  knowledge  by  other  means.  "  And  thus  even 
those  who  become  hard  of  hearing  at  an  age  when  they  can 
already  speak  a  little,  by  little  and  little  lose  all  that  they  have 
learnt.  Their  voices  lose  all  cheerfulness  and  euphony,  every 
day  wipes  a  word  out  of  the  memory,  and  with  it  the  idea  of 
which  it  was  the  sign."2 

1  Heinicke.  p.  103.  etc.  »  gdmuj^  pp.  2,  32. 


GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE.  7l 

Spoken  words  appear  to  be,  in  the  minds  of  the  deaf-mutes 
who  have  been  artificially  taught  to  speak,  merely  combined 
movements  of  the  throat  and  other  vocal  organs,  and  the  initial 
movement  made  by  them  in  calling  words  to  mind  has  been 
compared  to  a  tickling  in  the  throat.  People  wanting  a  sense 
often  imagine  to  themselves  a  resemblance  between  it  and  one 
of  the  senses  which  they  possess.  The  old  saying  of  the  blind 
man,  that  he  thought  scarlet  was  like  the  sound  of  the  trumpet, 
is  somewhat  like  a  remark  made  by  Kruse,  that  though  he  is 
"  stock- deaf "  he  has  a  bodily  feeling  of  music,  and  different 
instruments  have  different  effects  upon  him.  Musical  tones 
seem  to  his  perception  to  have  much  analogy  with  colours. 
The  sound  of  the  trumpet  is  yellow  to  him,  that  of  the  drum 
red  ;  while  the  music  of  the  organ  is  green,  and  of  the  bass-viol 
blue,  and  so  on.  Such  comparisons  are,  indeed,  not  confined  to 
those  whose  senses  are  incomplete.  Language  shows  clearly 
that  men  in  general  have  a  strong  feeling  of  such  analogies 
among  the  impressions  of  the  different  senses.  Expressions 
such  as  "  schreiend  roth,"  and  the  use  of  "  loud,"  as  applied  to 
colours  and  patterns,  are  superficial  examples  of  analogies  which 
have  their  roots  very  deep  in  the  human  mind. 

It  is  a  very  notable  fact  bearing  upon  the  problem  of  the  Origin 
of  Language,  that  even  born-mutes,  who  never  heard  a  word 
spoken,  do  of  their  own  accord  and  without  any  teaching  make 
vocal  sounds  more  or  less  articulate,  to  which  they  attach  a 
definite  meaning,  and  which,  when  once  made,  they  go  on  using 
afterwards  in  the  same  unvarying  sense.  Though  these  sounds 
are  often  capable  of  being  written  down  more  or  less  accurately 
with  our  ordinary  alphabets,  their  effect  on  those  who  make 
them  can,  of  course,  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  sense  of  hear- 
ing, but  must  consist  only  in  particular  ways  of  breathing, 
combined  with  particular  positions  of  the  vocal  organs. 

Teuscher,  a  deaf-mute,  whose  mind  was  developed  by  educa- 
tion to  a  remarkable  degree,  has  recorded  that,  in  his  uneducated 
state,  he  had  already  discovered  the  sounds  which  were  inwardly 
blended  with  his  sensations  (innig  verschmolzen  mit  meiner 
Empfindungsweise).  So,  as  a  child,  he  had  affixed  a  special 
sound  to  persons  he  loved,  his  parents,  brothers  and  sisters,  to 


72  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

animals,  and  things  for  which  he  had  no  sign  fas  water) ;  and 
called  any  person  he  wished  with  one  unaltered  voice.1  Heinicke 
gives  some  remarkable  evidence,  which  we  may,  I  think,  take 
as  given  in  entire  good  faith,  though  the  reservation  should  be 
made,  that  through  his  strong  partiality  for  articulation  as  a 
means  of  educating  the  deaf-and-dumb,  he  may  have  given  a 
definiteness  to  these  sounds  in  writing  them  down  which  they 
did  not  really  possess.  The  following  are  some  of  his  remarks  : 
— "  All  mutes  discover  words  for  themselves  for  different  things. 
Among  over  fifty  whom  I  have  partly  instructed  or  been  ac- 
quainted with,  there  was  not  one  who  had  not  uttered  at  least  a 
few  spoken  names,  which  he  had  discovered  himself,  and  some 
were  very  clear  and  well  defined.  I  had  under  my  instruction  a 
born  deaf-mute,  nineteen  years  old,  who  had  previously  invented 
many  writeable  words  for  things,  some  three,  four,  and  six 
syllables  long."  For  instance,  he  called  to  eat  "  mumm,"  to 
drink  "  schipp,"  a  child  "  tutten,"  a  dog  "  beyer,"  money 
"  patten."  He  had  a  neighbour  who  was  a  grocer,  and  him  he 
called  "  patt "  [a  name,  no  doubt,  connected  with  his  name  for 
money,  for  buying  and  selling  is  indicated  by  the  deaf-and-dumb 
by  the  action  of  counting  out  coin] .  The  grocer's  son  he  called 
by  a  simple  combination  "  pattutten."  For  the  two  first 
numerals,  he  had  words — 1,  "  ga ;  "  2,  "  schuppatter."  In  his 
language,  "riecke"  meant  "  I  will  not ;  "  and  when  they  wanted 
to  force  him  to  do  anything,  he  would  cry  "naffet  riecke  schito." 
An  exclamation  which  he  used  was  "  heschbefa,"  in  the  sense 
of  God  forbid.2 

Some  of  these  sounds,  as  "  mumm  "  and  "  schipp,"  for  eat- 
ing and  drinking,  and  perhaps  "  beyer,"  for  the  dog,  are  mere 
vocalizations  of  the  movements  of  the  mouth,  which  the  deaf- 
and-dumb  make  in  imitating  the  actions  of  eating,  drinking,  and 
barking,  in  their  gesture-language.  Besides,  it  is  a  common 
thing  for  even  the  untaught  deaf-and-dumb  to  speak  and  under- 
stand a  few  words  of  the  language  spoken  by  their  associates. 
Though  they  cannot  hear  them,  they  imitate  the  motions  of  the 
lips  and  teeth  of  those  who  speak,  and  thus  make  a  tolerable 
imitation  of  words  containing  labial  and  dental  letters,  though 
1  Steinthal,  Spr.  der  T.,  p.  917.  '  2  Heinicke,  p.  137,  etc. 


GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND   WORD-LANGUAGE.  73 

the  gutturals,  being  made  quite  out  of  sight,  can  only  be  im- 
parted to  them  by  proper  teaching,  and  then  only  with  difficulty 
and  imperfectly.  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  when  the 
deaf-and-dumb  are  taught  to  speak  in  articulate  language,  this 
is  done  merely  by  developing  and  systematizing  the  lip-imitation 
which  is  natural  to  them.  As  instances  of  the  power  which  deaf- 
mutes  have  of  learning  words  by  sight  without  any  regular 
teaching,  may  be  given  the  cases  mentioned  by  Schmalz  of 
children  born  stone-deaf,  who  learnt  in  this  way  to  say  "  papa," 
"mamma,"  "  muhme  "  (cousin),  "puppe"  (doll),  "  bitte  " 
(please).1  All  the  sounds  in  these  words  are  such  as  deaf 
persons  may  imitate  by  sight. 

An  extraordinary  story  of  this  kind  is  told  by  Eschwege,  who 
was  a  scientific  traveller  of  high  standing,  and  upon  whom  the 
responsibility  for  the  truth  of  the  narrative  must  rest.  The 
scene  is  laid  in  a  place  in  the  interior  of  Brazil,  where  he  rested 
on  a  journey,  and  his  account  is  as  follows  : — "  I  was  occupied 
the  rest  of  the  day  in  quail-hunting,  and  in  making  philoso- 
phical observations  on  a  deaf-and-dumb  idiot  negro  boy  about 
thirteen  years  old,  with  water  on  the  brain,  and  upon  whom 
nothing  made  any  impression  except  the  crowing  of  a  cock, 
whose  voice  he  could  imitate  to  the  life.  Just  as  people  teach 
the  deaf-and-dumb  to  speak,  so  this  beast-man,  by  observing 
and  imitating  the  movements  of  the  neck  and  tongue  of  the 
cock,  had  in  time  learnt  to  crow,  and  this  seemed  the  only 
pleasure  he  had  beyond  the  satisfaction  of  his  natural  wants. 
He  lay  most  part  of  the  day  stark  naked  on  the  ground,  and 
crowed  as  if  for  a  wager  against  the  cock."2 

Returning  to  the  list  of  words  given  by  Heinicke,  it  does  not 
seem  easy  to  set  down  any  of  them  as  lip-imitations,  unless  it 
be  "  heschbefa  "  "  Gott  bewahre  !  "  in  which  befa  may  be  an 
imitation  of  bewahre.  We  have,  then,  left  several  articulate 
sounds,  such  as  "  patten,"  money,  "  jbutten,"  child,  etc.,  which 
seem  to  have  been  used  as  real  words,  but  of  which  it  seems 
impossible  to  say  why  the  dumb  lad  selected  them  to  bear  the 
meanings  which  he  gave  them. 

The  vocal  sounds  used  by  Laura  Bridgman  are  of  great 
1  Schmalz,  p.  216  a.  2  Eschwege,  '  Brasilien  ; '  Brunswick,  1830,  part  i.  p.  59. 


74  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

interest  from  the  fact  that,  being  blind  as  well  as  deaf-and- 
dumb,  she  could  not  even  have  imitated  words  by  seeing  them 
made.  Yet  she  would  utter  sounds,  as  "  ho-o-ph-ph "  for 
wonder,  and  a  sort  of  chuckling  or  grunting  as  an  expression 
of  satisfaction.  When  she  did  not  like  to  be  touched,  she 
would  say//  Her  teachers  used  to  restrain  her  from  making 
inarticulate  sounds,  but  she  felt  a  great  desire  to  make  them, 
and  would  sometimes  shut  herself  up  and  "  indulge  herself  in 
a  surfeit  of  sounds."  But  this  vocal  faculty  of  hers  was  chiefly 
exercised  in  giving  what  may  be  called  name-sounds  to  persons 
whom  she  knew,  and  which  she  would  make  when  the  persons 
to  whom  she  had  given  them  came  near  her,  or  when  she 
wanted  to  find  them,  or  even  when  she  was  thinking  of  them. 
She  had  made  as  many  as  fifty  or  sixty  of  these  name-sounds, 
some  of  which  have  been  written  down,  as  foo,  too,  pa,jij,  pig, 
ts,  but  many  of  them  were  not  capable  of  being  written  down 
even  approximately. 

Even  if  Laura's  vocal  sounds  are  not  classed  as  real  words,  a 
distinction  between  the  articulate  sounds  used  by  the  deaf-and- 
dumb  for  child,  water,  eating  and  drinking,  etc.,  and  the  words 
of  ordinary  language,  could  not  easily  be  made,  whether  the 
deaf-mutes  invented  these  sounds  or  imitated  them  from  the 
lips  of  others.  To  go  upon  the  broadest  ground,  the  mere  fact 
that  teachers  can  take  children  who  have  no  means  of  uttering 
their  thoughts  but  the  gesture-language,  and  teach  them  to 
articulate  words,  to  recognise  them  by  sight  when  uttered  by 
others,  to  write  them,  and  to  understand  them  as  equivalents 
for  their  own  gestures,  is  sufficient  to  bridge  over  the  gulf 
which  lies  between  the  gesture-language  and,  at  least,  a  rudi- 
mentary form  of  word-language.  These  two  kinds  of  utterance 
are  capable  of  being  translated  with  more  or  less  exactness  into 
one  another ;  and  it  seems  more  likely  than  not  that  there  may 
be  a  similarity  between  tlje  process  by  which  the  human  mind 
first  uttered  itself  in  speech,  and  that  by  which  the  same  mind 
still  utters  itself  in  gestures. 

To  turn  to  another  subject.  We  have  no  evidence  of  man 
ever  having  lived  in  society  without  the  use  of  spoken  language  ; 
but  there  are  some  myths  of  such  races,  and,  moreover,  state- 


GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE.  75 

ments  have  been  made  by  modern  writers  of  eminence  as  to  an 
intermediate  state  between  gesture-language  and  word-language, 
which  deserve  careful  examination. 

In  Ethiopia,  across  the  desert,  says  the  geographer  Pom- 
ponius  Mela,  there  dwell  dumb  people,  and  such  as  use  gestures 
instead  of  language ;  others,  whose  tongues  give  no  sound ; 
others,  who  have  no  tongues  (muti  populi,  et  quibus  pro  eloquio 
nutus  est ;  alii  sine  sono  linguae  ;  alii  sine  linguis,  etc.).1  Pliny 
gives  much  the  same  account.  Some  of  these  Ethiopian  tribes 
are  said  to  have  no  noses,  some  no  upper  lips,  some  no  tongues. 
Some  have  for  their  language  nods  and  gestures  (quibusdam 
pro  sermone  nutus  motusque  membrorum  est).2 

To  go  thoroughly  into  the  discussion  of  these  stories  would 
require  an  investigation  of  the  whole  subject  of  the  legends  of 
monstrous  tribes  ;  but  an  off-hand  rationalizing  explanation  may 
be  sufficient  here.  The  frequent  use  of  the  gesture-language  by 
savage  tribes  in  intercourse  with  strangers  may  combine  with 
the  very  common  opinion  of  uneducated  men  that  the  talk  of 
foreigners  is  not  real  speech  at  all,  but  a  kind  of  inarticulate 
chirping,  barking,  or  grunting.  Moreover,  from  using  the 
words  "speechless,"  "tongueless,"  with  the  sense  of  "foreigner," 
"barbarian,"  and  talking  of  tribes  who  have  no  tongue  (no  lingo, 
as  our  sailors  would  say),  to  the  point-blank  statement  that 
there  are  races  of  men  without  speech  and  without  tongues,  is  a 
transition  quite  in  the  spirit  of  mythology. 

In  modern  times  we  hear  little  of  dumb  races,  at  least  from 
authors  worthy  of  credit ;  but  we  find  a  number  of  accounts  of 
people  occupying  as  it  were  a  half-way  house  between  the 
mythic  dumb  nations  and  ourselves,  and  having  a  speech  so 
imperfect  that  even  if  talking  of  ordinary  matters  they  have 
to  eke  it  out  by  gestures.  To  begin  in  the  last  century,  Lord 
Monboddo  says  that  a  certain  Dr.  Peter  Greenhill  told  him  that 
there  was  a  nation  east  of  Cape  Palm  as  in  Africa,  who  could  not 
understand  one  another  in  the  dark,  and  had  to  supply  the 
wants  of  their  language  by  gestures.3  Had  Lord  Mouboddo 

1  Mela,  iii.  9.  2  PHn.  vi.  35. 

3  Lord  ilonboddo,  'Origin  and  Progress  of  Language,'  2nd.  ed.;  Edinburgh,  1774, 
vol.  i.  p.  253. 


76  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

been  the  only  or  the  principal  authority  for  stories  of  this  class, 
we  mighj  have  left  his  half-languaged  men  to  keep  company 
with  hi  5  human  apes  and  tailed  men  in  the  regions  of  my- 
thology :  hut  in  this  matter  it  will  he  seen  that,  right  or  wrong, 
he  is  in  very  good  company. 

Describing  the  Puris  and  Coroados  of  Brazil,  Spix  and 
Martins,  having  remarked  that  different  tribes  converse  in  signs, 
and  explained  the  difficulty  they  found  in  making  them  under- 
stand by  signs  the  objects  or  ideas  for  which  they  wanted  the 
native  names,  go  on  to  say  how  imperfect  and  devoid  of  inflexion 
or  construction  these  languages  are.  Signs  with  hand  or  mouth, 
they  say,  are  required  to  make  them  intelligible.  To  say,  "  I 
will  go  into  the  wood,"  the  Indian  uses  the  words  "  wood-go," 
and  points  his  mouth  like  a  snout  in  the  direction  he  means.1 
Madame  Pfeiffer,too,  visited  the  Puris,  and  says  that  for  "to-day," 
"  to-morrow,"  and  "  yesterday,"  they  have  only  the  word  "day; " 
the  rest  they  express  by  signs.  For  "  to-day  "  they  say  "  day," 
and  touch  themselves  on  the  head,  or  point  straight  upward  ;  for 
"to-morrow"  they  say  also  "day,"  pointing  forward  with  the 
finger;  and  for  "yesterday,"  again  "day,"  pointing  behind  them.2 

Mr.  Mercer,  describing  the  low  condition  of  some  of  the 
Veddah  tribes  of  Ceylon,  stated  that  not  only  is  their  dialect 
incomprehensible  to  a  Singhalese,  but  that  even  their  communi- 
cations with  one  another  are  made  by  signs,  grimaces,  and 
guttural  sounds,  which  bear  little  or  no  resemblance  to  distinct 
words  or  systematized  language.3 

Dr.  Milligan,  speaking  of  the  language  of  Tasmania,  and  the 
rapid  variation  of  its  dialects,  says,  "  The  habit  of  gesticulation, 
and  the  use  of  signs  to  eke  out  the  meaning  of  monosyllabic 
expressions,  and  to  give  force,  precision,  and  character  to  vocal 
sounds,  exerted  a  further  modifying  effect,  producing,  as  it  did, 
carelessness  and  laxity  of  articulation,  and  in  the  application 
and  pronunciation  of  words."  "  To  defects  in  orthoepy  the 
aborigines  added  short-comings  in  syntax,  for  they  observed  no 
settled  order  or  arrangement  of  words  in  the  construction  of 

1  Spix  and  Martius,  'Reise  in  Brasilien  ;'  Munich,  1823,  etc.,  vol.  i.  p.  385,  etc. 

2  Ida  Pfeiffer,  '  Eine  Frauenfahrt  urn  die  Erde  ;'  Vienna,  1850,  p.  102. 

8  Sir  J.  Emerson  Tennent,  'Cevlon,'  3rd  ed. ;  London,  1859,  vol.  ii.  p.  441. 


GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE.  77 

their  sentences,  but  conveyed  in  a  supplementary  fashion  by 
tone,  manner,  and  gesture  those  modifications  of  meaning,  which 
we  express  by  mood,  tense,  number,  etc."1 

We  find  a  similar  remark  made  about  a  tribe  of  North 
American  Indians,  by  Captain  Burton.  "  Those  natives  who, 
like  the  Arapahos,  possess  a  very  scanty  vocabulary,  pronounced 
in  a  quasi-unintelligible  way,  can  hardly  converse  with  one 
another  in  the  dark  ;  to  make  a  stranger  understand  them  they 
must  always  repair  to  the  camp-fire  for  '  pow-wow.'  "8 

In  South  Africa,  the  same  is  said  of  the  Bushmen  : — "  So 
imperfect,  indeed,  is  the  language  of  the  Bosjesmans,  that  even 
those  of  the  same  horde  often  find  a  difficulty  in  understanding 
each  other  without  the  use  of  gesture;  and  at  night,  when  a 
party  of  Bosjesmans  are  smoking,  dancing,  and  talking,  they  are 
obliged  to  keep  up  a  fire  so  as  to  be  able  by  its  light  to  see  the 
explanatory  gestures  of  their  companions."3 

The  array  of  evidence  in  favour  of  the  existence  of  tribes  whose 
language  is  incomplete  without  the  help  of  gesture-signs,  even 
for  things  of  ordinary  import,  is  very  remarkable.  The  matter 
is  important  ethnologically,  for  if  it  may  be  taken  as  proved 
that  there  are  really  people  whose  language  does  not  suffice  to 
speak  of  the  common  subjects  of  every-day  life  without  the  aid 
of  gesture,  the  fact  will  either  furnish  about  the  strongest  case 
of  degeneration  known  in  the  history  of  the  human  race,  or 
supply  a  telling  argument  in  favour  of  the  theory  that  the 
gesture-language  is  part  of  the  original  utterance  of  mankind 
which  speech  has  more  or  less  fully  superseded  among  different 
tribes.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  evidence  is  in  every  case 
more  or  less  defective.  Spix  and  Martius  make  no  claim  to 
having  mastered  the  Puri  and  Coroado  languages.  The  Coroado 
words  for  "to-morrow"  and  "the  day  after  to-morrow,"  viz., 
herinanta  and  hino  herinanta,  make  it  unlikely  that  their  neigh- 
bours the  Puris,  who  are  so  nearly  on  the  same  level  of  civiliza- 
tion, have  no  such  words.  Mr.  Mercer  seems  to  have  adopted 
the  common  view  of  foreigners  about  the  Veddahs,  but  it  has 

1  Milligan,  in  Papers  and  Proc.  of  Roy.  Soc.  of  Tasmania,  1859  ;  Tol.  iii.  part  ii. 
3  Burton,  '  City  of  the  Saints,'  p.  151.     See  Schoolcraft,  part  i.  p.  564. 
8  J.  G.  Wood,  '  Nat.  Hist,  of  Man  ; '  vol.  i.  p.  266. 


78  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

happened  here,  as  in  many  other  accounts  of  savage  trihes,  that 
closer  acquaintance  has  shown  them  to  have  been  wrongly  ac- 
cused. Mr.  Bailey,  who  has  had  good  opportunities  of  studying 
them,  contradicts  their  supposed  deficiency  in  language  with  the 
remark,  "  I  never  knew  one  of  them  at  a  loss  for  words  suffi- 
ciently intelligible  to  convey  his  meaning,  not  to  his  fellows  only, 
but  to  the  Singhalese  of  the  neighbourhood,  who  are  all,  more 
or  less,  acquainted  with  the  Veddah  patois."1  Dr.  Milligan  is, 
I  believe,  our  best  authority  as  to  the  Tasmanians  and  their 
language,  but  he  probably  had  to  trust  in  this  matter  to  native 
information,  which  is  far  from  being  always  safe.2  Lastly, 
Captain  Burton  only  paid  a  flying  visit  to  the  Western  Indians, 
and  his  interpreters  could  hardly  have  given  him  scientific  infor- 
mation on  such  a  subject. 

The  point  in  question  is  one  which  it  is  not  easy  to  bring  to  a 
perfectly  distinct  issue,  seeing  that  all  people,  savage  and  civilised, 
do  use  signs  more  or  less.  As  has  been  remarked  already,  many 
savage  tribes  accompany  their  talk  with  gestures  to  a  great 
extent,  and  in  conversation  with  foreigners,  gestures  and  words 
are  usually  mixed  to  express  what  is  to  be  said.  It  is  extremely 
likely  that  Madame  Pfeiffer's  savages  suffered  the  penalty  of 
being  set  down  as  wanting  in  language,  for  no  worse  fault  than 
using  a  combination  of  words  and  signs  in  order  to  make  what 
they  meant  as  clear  as  possible  to  her  comprehension.  But  the 
existence  of  a  language  incomplete,  even  for  ordinary  purposes, 
without  the  aid  of  gesture-signs,  could  only  be  proved  by  the 
evidence  of  an  educated  man  so  familiar  with  the  language  in 
question,  as  to  be  able  to  say  from  absolute  personal  knowledge 
not  only  what  it  can,  but  what  it  cannot  do,  an  amount  of  ac- 
quaintance to  which  I  think  none  of  the  writers  quoted  would 
lay  claim.  In  the  case  of  languages  spoken  by  very  low  races, 
like  the  Puris  and  the  Tasmanians,  the  difficulty  of  deciding 

1  J.  Bailey,  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc. ;  London,  1863,  p.  300. 

2  Tbe  objection  to  trusting  native  information  as  to  grammatical  structure,  may  be 
seen  in  the  difficulty,  so  constantly  met  with  in  investigating  the  languages  of  rude 
tribes,  of  getting  a  substantive  from  a  native  without  a  personal  pronoun  tacked  to  it. 
Thus  in  Dr.  Milligan's  vocabulary,  the  expressions  puygan  neena,  noanalmeena,  ghen 
for  "husband"  and  "father,"  seem  really  to  mean  "your  husband,"  "my  father," 
or  something  of  the  kind. 


GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE.  79 

sncli  a  point  must  be  very  great.  The  strongest  fact  bearing 
upon  the  matter  of  which  I  am  aware,  is  that  savage  tribes 
whose  numeral  words  do  not  go  beyond  some  low  number,  as  , 
five  or  ten,  are  well  known  to  be  able  to  reckon  much  farther  on 
their  fingers  and  toes,  here  distinctly  using  gesture-language 
where  word-language  fails.1 

There  is  a  point  of  some  practical  importance  involved  in  the 
question,  whether  gestures  or  words  are,  so  to  speak,  most 
natural.  If  signs  form  an  easier  means  for  the  reception  and 
expression  of  ideas  .hin  words,  then  idiots  ought  to  learn  to 
understand  and  use  gestures  more  readily  than  speech.  I  have 
only  been  able  to  get  a  distinct  answer  to  the  question,  whether 
they  do  so  or  not,  from  one  competent  judge  in  such  a  matter, 
Dr.  Scott,  of  Exeter,  who  assures  me  that  semi-idiotic  children, 
to  whom  there  is  no  hope  of  teaching  more  than  the  merest 
rudiments  of  speech,  are  yet  capable  of  receiving  a  considerable 
amount  of  knowledge  by  means  of  signs,  and  of  expressing  them- 
selves by  them.  It  is  well  known  that  a  certain  class  of  children 
are  dumb  from  deficiency  of  intellect,  rather  than  from  want  of 
the  sense  of  hearing,  and  it  is  to  these  that  the  observation 
applies.2 

The  idea  of  solving  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  language  by 
actual  experiment,  must  have  very  often  been  started.  There 
are  several  stories  of  such  an  experiment  having  been  tried. 
One  is  Herodotus's  well-known  tale  of  Psammitichus,  King  of 
Egypt,  who  had  the  two  children  brought  up  by  a  silent  keeper, 
and  suckled  by  goats.  The  first  word  they  said,  bekos,  meaning 
bread  in  the  Phrygian  language,  of  course  proved  that  the 
Phrygians  were  the  oldest  race  of  mankind.  It  is  a  very  trite 
remark  that  there  is  nothing  absolutely  incredible  in  the  story, 
and  that  bck,  Ick,  is  a  good  imitative  word  for  bleating,  as  in 
/3A»jX't°Mat.  M'/K"°Mat>  blokcn,  meeker  n,  etc.  But  the  very  name 
of  Psammitichus,  who  has  served  as  a  lay-figure  for  so  many 
tales  to  be  draped  upon,  is  fatal  to  any  claim  to  the  historical 

1  For  further  remarks  on  such  mixed  expression  by  gesture  and  word,  as  bearing 
on  development  of  language,  see  the  author's    '  Primitive  Culture,'  chap.  v.  and  vii. 
[Xote  to  3rd  Edition]. 

2  See  \V.  R.  Scott,  'Remarks  on  the  Education  of  Idiots  ;'  London,  1847. 


80  GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE. 

credibility  of  such  a  story.  He  sounds  the  springs  of  the  Nile 
with  a  cord  thousands  of  fathoms  long,  and  finds  no  bottom  ;  he 
accomplishes  the  prediction  of  one  oracle  by  pouring  a  libation 
out  of  a  brazen  helmet,  and  of  another,  concerning  cocks,  by 
leading  an  army  of  Carians,  with  crested  helmets,  against 
Tementhes,  king  of  Egypt,  and  he  figures  in  the  Greek  version 
of  the  story  of  Cinderella's  slipper.  Another  account  is  related 
in  the  life  of  James  IV.  of  Scotland.  "  The  King  also  caused 
tak  ane  dumb  voman,  and  pat  her  in  Inchkeith,  and  gave  hir 
tuo  bairnes  with  hir,  and  gart  furnisch  hir  in  all  necessares 
thingis  perteaning  to  thair  nourischment,  desiring  heirby  to 
knaw  quhat  languages  they  had  when  they  cam  to  the  aige  of 
perfyte  speach.  Some  sayes  they  spak  guid  Hebrew,  but  I 
knaw  not  by  authoris  rehearse,"  etc.1  Another  story  is  told  of 
the  great  Mogul,  Akbar  Khan.  It  is  mentioned  by  Purchas, 
only  twenty  years  after  Akbar's  death,  and  told  in  detail  by 
the  Jesuit  Father  Catrou,  as  follows  : — "  Indeed  it  may  be  said 
that  desire  of  knowledge  was  Akbar's  ruling  passion,  and  his 
curiosity  induced  him  to  try  a  very  strange  experiment.  He 
wished  to  ascertain  what  language  children  would  speak  without 
teaching,  as  he  had  heard  that  Hebrew  was  the  natural  language 
of  those  who  had  been  taught  no  other.  To  settle  the  question, 
he  had  twelve  children  at  the  breast  shut  up  in  a  castle  six 
leagues  from  Agra,  and  brought  up  by  twelve  dumb  nurses.  A 
porter,  who  was  dumb  also,  was  put  in  charge  and  forbidden  on 
pain  of  death  to  open  the  castle  door.  When  the  children  were 
twelve  years  old  [there  is  a  decided  feeling  for  duodecimals  in 
the  story],  he  had  them  brought  before  him,  and  collected  in  his 
palace  men  skilled  in  all  languages.  A  Jew  who  was  at  Agra 
was  to  judge  whether  the  children  spoke  Hebrew.  There  was 
no  difficulty  in  finding  Arabs  and  Chaldeans  in  the  capital.  On 
the  other  hand  the  Indian  philosophers  asserted  that  the  children 
would  speak  the  Hanscrit  [i.e.  Sanskrit]  language,  which  takes 
the  place  of  Latin  among  them,  and  is  only  in  use  among  the 
learned,  and  is  learnt  in  order  to  understand  the  ancient  Indian 

1  Herod,  ii.  c.  2.  Lindsay  of  Pitscottic,  'Chronicles  of  Scotland,'  vol.  i.  p.  249. 
For  other  European  legends,  see  De  Brosses,  '  Traite  des  Langues,'  vol.  ii.  p.  7  ; 
Farrar,  '  Chapters  on  Language, '  p.  13. 


GESTURE-LANGUAGE  AND  WORD-LANGUAGE.  81 

books  of  Philosophy  and  Theology.  When  however  the  children 
appeared  before  the  Emperor,  every  one  was  astonished  to  find 
that  they  did  not  speak  any  language  at  all.  They  had  learnt 
from  their  nurses  to  do  without  any,  and  they  merely  expressed 
their  thoughts  by  gestures  which  answered  the  purpose  of  words. 
They  were  so  savage  and  so  shy  that  it  was  a  work  of  some 
trouble  to  tame  them  and  to  loosen  their  tongues,  which  they 
had  scarcely  used  during  their  infancy."  l 

There  may  possibly  be  a  foundation  of  fact  for  this  story, 
which  fits  very  well  with  what  is  known  of  Akbar's  unscrupulous 
character,  and  his  greediness  for  knowledge.  Moreover  it  tells 
in  its  favour,  that  had  a  story-teller  invented  it,  he  would  hardly 
have  brought  it  to  what  must  have  seemed  to  him  such  a  lame 
and  impotent  conclusion,  as  that  the  children  spoke  no  language 
at  all. 

1  'Purchas,  His  Pilgrimes  ;'  London,  1625-6,  vol.  v.  (1626)  p.  516.  Catrou, « Hist. 
Gen.  cle  1'Enipire  du  Mogol ;'  Paris,  1705,  p.  259,  etc.  A  Singhalese  legend  in  Hardy, 
'  Eastern  Konarchism, '  p.  192. 


CHAPTER    V. 

PICTURE-WRITING    AND    WORD-WRITING. 

THE  art  of  recording  events,  and  sending  messages,  by  means 
of  pictures  representing  the  things  or  actions  in  question,  is 
called  Picture- Writing. 

The  deaf-and-dumb  man's  remark,  that  the  gesture -language 
is  a  picture-language,  finds  its  counterpart  in  an  observation  of 
"\Vilhelm  von  Humboldt's,  that  "In  fact,  gesture,  destitute  of 
sound,  is  a  species  of  writing."  There  is  indeed  a  very  close 
relation  between  these  two  ways  of  expressing  and  communi- 
cating thought.  Gesture  can  set  forth  thought  with  far  greater 
speed  and  fulness  than  picture-writing,  but  it  is  inferior  to  it  in 
having  to  place  the  different  elements  of  a  sentence  in  succession, 
in  single  file,  so  to  speak ;  while  by  a  picture  the  whole  of  an 
event  may  be  set  in  view  at  one  glance,  and  that  permanently, 
so  as  to  serve  as  a  message  to  a  distant  place  or  a  record  to  a 
future  time.  But  the  imitation  of  visible  qualities  as  a  means 
of  expressing  ideas  is  common  to  both  methods,  and  both  belong 
to  similar  conditions  of  the  human  mind.  Both  are  found  in 
very  distant  countries  and  times,  and  spring  up  naturally  under 
favourable  circumstances,  provided  that  a  higher  means  of 
supplying  the  same  wants  has  not  already  occupied  the  place 
which  they  can  only  fill  very  partially  and  rudely. 

There  being  so  great  a  likeness  between  the  conditions  which 
cause  the  use  of  the  gesture-language  and  of  picture-writing,  it 
is  not  surprising  to  find  the  natives  of  North  America  as 
proficients  in  the  one  as  in  the  other.  Their  pictures,  as  drawn 
and  interpreted  by  Schoolcraft  and  other  writers,  give  the  best 
information  that  is  to  be  had  of  the  lower  development  of  the  art.1 

1  Figs.   2  to  7,  and  their  interpretat.kns,  are  fron>  Schoolcraft  '  Indian  Tribes,' 


PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING. 


83 


Fig.  2  is  an  Indian  record  on  a  blazed  pine-tree  (to  blaze  a 
tree  is  to  wound  (blesser)  its  side  with  an  axe,  so  as  to  mark  it 
with  a  conspicuous 
white  patch).  On 
the  right  are  two 
canoes  (2  and  4), 
with  a  catfish  (1) 
in  one  of  them,  and 
a  fabulous  animal, 
known  as  the  cop- 
per-tailed bear  (3), 
in  the  other.  On 
the  left  are  a  bear 


Fig.  2. 


and  six  catfish  ;  and  the  sense  of  the  picture  is  simply  that 
two  hunters,  whose  names,  or  rather  totems  or  clan-names,  were 
"Copper-tailed  Bear"  and  "Catfish,"  went  out  on  a  hunting 
expedition  in  their  canoes,  and  took  a  bear  and  six  cat-fish. 


Fig.  3. 

Fig.  3  is  a  picture  on  the  face  of  a  rock  on  the  shore  of  Lake 
Superior,  and  records  an  expedition  across  the  lake,  which  was 
led  by  Myeengun,  or  "  Wolf,"  a  celebrated  Indian  chief.  The 
canoes  with  the  upright  strokes  in  them  represent  the  force  of 
the  party  in  men  and  boats,  and  "Wolf's  chief  ally,  Kishkemuna- 
see,  that  is,  "  Kingfisher,"  goes  in  the  first  canoe.  The  arch 
with  three  circles  below  it  shows  that  there  were  three  suns 

part  i.  See  also  the  '  Narrative  of  the  Captivity  and  Adventures  of  John  Tanner,' 
edited  by  Edwin  James,  1830,  from  which  many  of  Schoolcraft's  pictures  and  inter- 
pretations seem  taken. 

G  2 


PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING. 


Fig.  4. 


under  heaven,  that  is,  that  the  voyage  took  three  days.  The 
tortoise  seems  to  indicate  their  getting  to  land,  while  the  re- 
presentation of  the  chief  himself  on  horseback  shows  that  the 
expedition  took  place  'since  the  time  when  horses  were  intro- 
duced into  Canada. 

The  Indian  grave-posts,  Fig.  4,  tell  their  story  in  the  same 
child-like  manner.  Upon  one  is  a  tortoise,  the  dead  warrior's 

totem,  and  a  figure  beside 
it  representing  a  head- 
less man,  which  shows  he 
is  dead.  Below  are  his 
three  marks  of  honour. 
On  the  other  post  there 
is  no  separate  sign  for 
death,  but  the  chief's  to- 
tem, a  crane,  is  reversed. 
Six  marks  of  honour  are 
awarded  to  him  on  the 
right,  and  three  on  the 
left.  The  latter  represent  three  important  general  treaties  of 
peace  which  he  had  attended ;  the  former  would  seem  to  stand 
for  six  war-parties  or  battles.  The  pipe  and  hatchet  are  symbols 
of  influence  in  peace  and  war. 

The  great  defect  of  this  kind  of  record  is  that  it  can  only  be 
understood  within  a  very  limited  circle.  It  does  not  tell  the  story 
at  length,  as  is  done  in  explaining  it  in  words ;  but  merely  suggests 
some  event,  of  which  it  only  gives  such  details  as  are  required  to 
enable  a  practised  observer  to  construct  a  complete  picture.  It 
may  be  compared  in  this  respect  to  the  elliptical  forms  of  ex- 
pression which  are  current  in  all  societies  whose  attention  is 
given  specially  to  some  narrow  subject  of  interest,  and  where,  as 
all  men's  minds  have  the  same  frame-work  set  up  in  them,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  go  into  an  elaborate  description  of  the  whole 
state  of  things  ;  but  one  or  two  details  are  enough  to  enable  the 
hearer  to  understand  the  whole.  Such  expressions  as  "  new 
white  at  48,"  "  best  selected  at  92,"  though  perfectly  understood 
in  the  commercial  circles  where  they  are  current,  are  as  unintel- 
ligible to  any  one  who  is  not  familiar  with  the  course  of  events 


PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WHITING.  85 

in  those  circles,  as  an  Indian  record  of  a  war-party  would  be  to 
an  ordinary  Londoner. 

Though,  however,  familiarity  with  the  picture-writing  of  the 
Indians,  as  well  as  with  their  hahits  and  peculiarities,  might 
enable  the  student  to  make  a  pretty  good  guess  at  the  meaning 
of  such  documents  as  the  above,  which  are  meant  to  be  under- 
stood by  strangers,  there  is  another  class  of  picture-writings, 
used  principally  by  the  magicians  or  medicine-men,  which  cannot 
be  even  thus  interpreted.  The  songs  and  charms  used  among 
the  Indians  of  North  America  are  repeated  or  sung  by  memory, 
but,  as  an  assistance  to  the  singer,  pictures  are  painted  upon 
sticks,  or  pieces  of  birch-bark  or  other  material,  which  serve  to 
suggest  to  the  mind  the  successive  verses.  Some  of  these  docu- 
ments, with  the  songs  to  which  they  refer,  are  given  in  School- 
craft,  and  one  or  two  examples  will  show  sufficiently  how  they 
are  used,  and  make  it  evident  that  they  can  only  convey  their 
full  meaning  to  those  who  know  by  heart  already  the  composi- 
tions they  refer  to.  They  are  mere  Samson's  riddles,  only  to  be 
guessed  by  those  who  have  ploughed  with  his  heifer. 
Thus,  a  drawing  of  a  man  with  two  marks  on  his 
breast  and  four  on  his  legs  (Fig.  5)  is  to  remind  the 
singer  that  at  this  place  comes  the  following  verse: — 

"  Two  days  must  you  sit  fast,  my  friend, — 
Four  days  must  you  sit  still." 

Fig.  5. 


Fig.  6  is  the  record  of  a  love-song— (1)  represents  the  lover ; 
in  (2)  he  is  singing,  and  beating  a  magic  drum ;  in  (3)  he  sur- 
rounds himself  with  a  secret  lodge,  denoting  the  effects  of  his 


86 


PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING. 


necromancy ;  in  (4)  he  and  his  mistress  are  shown  joined  by  a 
single  arm,  to  indicate  the  union  of  their  affections,  in  (5)  she 
is  shown  on  an  island ;  in  (6)  she  is  asleep,  and  his  voice  is 
shown,  while  his  magical  powers  are  reaching  her  heart ;  and 
the  heart  itself  is  shown  in  (7).  To  each  of  these  figures  a 
verse  of  the  song  corresponds. 

1.  It  is  my  painting  that  makes  me  a  god. 

2.  Hear  the  sounds  of  my  voice,  of  my  song ;  it  is  my  voice. 

3.  I  cover  myself  in  sitting  down  by  her. 

4.  I  can  make  her  blush,  because  I  hear  all  she  says  of  me. 

5.  Were  she  on  a  distant  island,  I  could  make  her  swim  over. 

6.  Though  she  were  far  off,  even  on  the  other  hemisphere. 

7.  I  speak  to  your  heart. 


Fig.  7. 

Fig.  7  is  a  war-song.  The  warrior  is  shown  in  (1)  ;  he  is 
drawn  with  wings,  to  show  that  he  is  active  and  swift  of  foot. 
In  (2)  he  stands  under  the  morning  star ;  in  (3)  he  is  standing 
under  the  centre  of  heaven,  with  his  war-club  and  rattle  ;  in  (4) 
the  eagles  of  carnage  are  flying  round  the  sky ;  in  (5)  he  lies 
slain  on  the  field  of  battle  ;  and  in  (6)  he  appears  as  a  spirit  iu 
the  sky.  The  words  are  these  : — 

1.  I  wish  to  have  the  body  of  the  swiftest  bird. 

2.  Every  day  I  look  at  you  ;  the  half  of  the  day  I  sing  my  song. 

3.  I  throw  away  my  body. 

4.  The  birds  take  a  flight  in  the  air. 

5.  Full  happy  am  I  to  be  numbered  with  the  slain. 

6.  The  spirits  on  high  repeat  my  name. 

Catlin  tells  how  the  chief  of  the  Kickapoos,  a  man  of  great 


PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING.  87 

ability,  generally  known  as  the  "  Shawnee  Prophet,"  having-,  as 
was  said,  learnt  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  from  a  missionary, 
taught  them  to  his  tribe,  pretending  to  have  received  a  super- 
natural mission.  He  composed  a  prayer,  which  he  wrote  down 
on  a  flat  stick,  "in  characters  somewhat  resembling  Chinese 
letters."  When  Catlin  visited  the  tribe,  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  used  to  repeat  this  prayer  morning  and  evening, 
placing  the  fore-finger  under  the  first  character,  repeating  a 
sentence  or  two,  and  so  going  on  to  the  next,  till  the  prayer, 
which  took  some  ten  minutes  to  repeat,  was  finished.1  I  do  not 
know  whether  any  of  these  curious  prayer- sticks  are  now  to  be 
seen,  but  they  were  probably  made  on  the  same  principle  as  the 
suggestive  pictures  used  for  the  native  Indian  songs. 

Picture-writing  is  found  among  savage  races  in  all  quarters  of 
the  globe,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  its  principle  is  the  same 
everywhere.  The  pictures  on  the  Lapland  magic  drums,  of 
which  we  have  interpretations,  serve  much  the  same  purpose  as 
the  American  writing.  Savage  paintings,  or  scratchings,  or 
carvings  on  rocks,  have  a  family  likeness,  whether  we  find  them 
in  North  or  South  America,  in  Siberia  or  Australia.  The  inter- 
pretation of  rock-pictures,  which  mostly  consist  of  few  figures, 
is  in  general  a  hopeless  task,  unless  a  key  is  to  be  had.  Many 
are,  no  doubt,  mere  pictorial  utterances,  drawings  of  animals 
and  things  without  any  historical  sense  ;  some  are  names,  as  the 
totems  carved  by  those  who  sprang  upon  the  dangerous  leaping- 
rock  at  the  Red  Pipestone  Quarry.2  Dupaix  noticed  in  Mexico 
a  sculptured  eagle,  apparently  on  the  boundary  of  Quauhnahuac, 
"  the  place  near  the  eagle,"  now  called  Cuernavaca,3  and  the  fact 
suggests  that  rock-sculptures  may  often  be,  like  this,  symbolic 
boundary  marks.  But  there  is  seldom  a  key  to  be  had  to  the 
reading  of  rock-sculptures,  which  the  natives  generally  say  were 
done  by  the  people  long  ago.  I  have  seen  them  in  Mexico  on 
cliffs  where  one  can  hardly  imagine  how  the  savage  sculptors  can 
have  climbed.  When  Humboldt  asked  the  Indians  of  the 

1  Catlin,  'North  American  Indians,'  7th  ed. ;  London,  1848,  vol.  ii.  p.  98. 

2  Catlin,  vol.  ii.  p.  170. 

s  Lo.d  Kingsborough,  'Antiquities  of  Mexico  ;'  London,  1830,  etc.,  voL  iv.  part  i., 
no.  31,  and  vol.'  v.  ExpL 


88  PICTURE-WHITING  AND  WORD-WRITING. 

Oronoko  who  it  was  that  sculptured  the  figures  of  animals  and 
symbolic  signs  high  up  on  the  face  of  the  crags  along  the  river, 
they  answered  with  a  smile,  as  relating  a  fact  of  which  only  a 
stranger,  a  white  man,  could  possibly  be  ignorant,  "  that  at  the 
time  of  the  great  waters  their  fathers  went  up  to  that  height  in 
their  canoes."1 

As  the  gesture-language  is  substantially  the  same  among 
savage  tribes  all  over  the  world,  and  also  among  children  who 
cannot  speak,  so  the  picture-writings  of  savages  are  not  only 
similar  to  one  another,  but  are  like  what  children  make  untaught 
even  in  civilized  countries.  Like  the  universal  language  of 
gestures,  the  art  of  picture-writing  tends  to  prove  that  the  mind 
of  the  uncultured  man  works  in  much  the  same  way  at  all  times 
and  everywhere.  As  an  example  of  the  way  in  which  it  is 
possible  for  an  observer  who  has  never  realised  this  fact  to  be 
led  astray  by  such  a  general  resemblance,  the  celebrated  "  Livre 
des  Sauvages  "  may  be  adduced. 

This  book  of  pictures  had  been  lying  for  many  years  in  a 
Paris  library,  before  the  Abbe  Domenech  unearthed  it  and 
published  it  in  facsimile,  as  a  native  American  document  of 
high  ethnological  value.  It  contains  a  number  of  rude  drawings 
done  in  black  lead  and  red  chalk,  in  great  part  enormously  in- 
decent, though  perhaps  not  so  much  with  the  grossness  of  the 
savage  as  of  the  European  blackguard.  Many  of  the  drawings 
represent  Scripture  scenes,  and  ceremonies  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  church,  often  accompanied  by  explanatory  German 
words  in  the  cursive  hand,  one  or  two  of  which,  as  the  name 
"  Maria  "  written  close  to  the  rude  figure  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
the  Abbe  succeeded  in  reading,  though  most  of  them  were  a 
deep  mystery  to  him.  There  are  an  evident  Adam  and  Eve  in  the 
garden,  with  "  betruger "  (deceiver)  written  against  them ; 
Adam  and  Eve  sent  out  of  Paradise,  with  the  description 
"  gebant  "  (banished)  ;  a  priest  offering  mass  ;  figures  with  the 
well-known  rings  of  bread  in  their  hands,  explained  as  "fassdag  " 
(fast-day),  and  so  on.  There  is  no  evidence  of  any  connexion 
with  America  in  the  whole  matter,  except  that  the  document  is 
said  to  have  come  into  the  hands  of  a  collector,  in  company  with 

1  Humboldt  and  Boni'land,  voL  ii.  p.  239. 


PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING.  89 

an  Iro-juois  dictionary,  and  that  the  editor  says  it  is  written  on 
Canadian  paper,  but  he  gives  no  reason  for  thinking  so.  So  far 
as  one  can  judge  from  the  published  copy,  it  may  have  been 
done  by  a  German  boy  in  his  own  country.  One  of  the  drawings 
shows  a  man  with  what  seems  a  mitre  on  his  head,  speaking  to 
three  figures  standing  reverently  before  him.  This  personage  is 
entitled  "grosshud"  (great-hat),  a  common  term  among  the 
German  Jews,  who  speak  of  their  rabbis,  in  all  reverence,  as  tho 
"  great  hats." 

The  Abbe  Domenech  had  spent  many  years  in  America,  and 
was,  no  doubt,  well  acquainted  with  Indian  pictures.  Moreover, 
the  resemblance  which  struck  him  as  existing  between  the  pic- 
tures he  had  been  used  to  see  among  the  Indians,  and  those  in 
the  "  Book  of  the  Savages,"  is  quite  a  real  one.  A  great  part  of 
the  pictures,  if  painted  on  birch-bark  or  deer-skins,  might  pass  as 
Indian  work.  The  mistake  he  made  was  that  his  generalization 
was  too  narrow,  and  that  he  founded  his  argument  on  a  likeness 
which  was  only  caused  by  the  similarity  of  the  early  development 
of  the  human  mind. 

Map-making  is  a  branch  of  picture-writing  with  which  the 
savage  is  quite  familiar,  and  he  is  often  more  skilful  in  it  than 
the  generality  of  civilized  men.  In  Tahiti,  for  instance,  the 
natives  were  able  to  make  maps  for  the  guidance  of  foreign 
visitors.1  Maps  made  with  raised  lines  are  mentioned  as  in  use 
in  Peru  before  the  Conquest,*  and  there  is  no  doubt  about  the 
skill  of  the  North  American  Indians  and  Esquimaux  in  the  art, 
as  may  be  seen  by  a  number  of  passages  in  Schoolcraft  and  else- 
where.3 The  oldest  map  known  to  be  in  existence  is  the  map  of 
the  Ethiopian  gold-mines,  dating  from  the  time  of  Sethos  L, 
the  father  of  Eameses  II.,4  long  enough  before  the  time  of  the 
bronze  tablet  of  Aristagoras,  on  which  was  inscribed  the  circuit 
of  the  whole  earth,  and  all  the  sea  and  all  rivers.5 

1  Gustav  Klemm,  '  Allgemeine  Cultur-Geschichte  der  Menschheit;'  Leipzig,  1843- 
5-2,  vol.  iv.  p.  396. 

-  Ilivero  and  v.  Tschucli,  'AntigiiedadesPeruanas;' Vienna,  1851,  p.  124.  Prescott, 
'Peru  ;'  vol.  i.  p.  116. 

3  Schoolcraft,  part  i.  pp.  334,  353  ;  part  iii.  pp.  256,  485.     Harmon,  '  Journal  ; 
Andover,  1820,  p.  371.     Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  189,  280. 

4  liirch,  in  '  Archaeologia,'  vol.  xxxiv.  p.  382.  *  Herod,  v.  49. 


90  PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING. 

The  highest  development  of  the  art  of  picture-writing  is  to  be 
found  among  the  ancient  Mexicans.  Their  productions  of  this 
kind  are  far  better  known  than  those  of  the  Bed  Indians,  and  are 
indeed  much  more  artistic,  as  well  as  being  more  systematic  and 
copious.  Some  of  the  most  characteristic  specimens  hare  been 
drawn  and  described  by  Alexander  von  Humboldt,  and  Lord 
Kingsborough's  great  work  contains  a  huge  mass  of  them,  which 
he  published  in  facsimile  in  support  of  his  views  upon  that 
philosopher's  stone  of  ethnologists,  the  Lost  Tribes  of  Israel. 

The  bulk  of  the  Mexican  paintings  are  mere  pictures,  directly 
representing  migrations,  wars,  sacrifices,  deities,  arts,  tributes, 
and  such  matters,  in  a  way  not  differing  in  principle  from  that 
of  the  lowest  savages.  But  in  the  historical  records  and  calen- 
dars, the  events  are  accompanied  by  a  regular  notation  of  years, 
and  sometimes  of  divisions  of  years,  which  entitles  them  to  be 
considered  as  regularly  dated  history.  The  art  of  dating  events 
was  indeed  not  unknown  to  the  Northern  Indians.  A  resident 
among  the  Kristinaux  (generally  called  for  shortness,  Crees), 
who  knew  them  before  they  were  in  their  present  half-civilized 
state,  says  that  they  had  names  for  the  moons  which  make  up 
the  year,  calling  them  "  whirlwind  moon,"  "  moon  when  the 
fowls  go  to  the  south,"  "  moon  when  the  leaves  fall  off  from  the 
trees,"  and  so  on.  When  a  hunter  left  a  record  of  his  chase 
pictured  on  a  piece  of  birch-bark,  for  the  information  of  others 
who  might  pass  that  way,  he  would  draw  a  picture  which  showed 
the  name  of  the  month,  and  make  beside  it  a  drawing  of  the 
shape  of  the  moon  at  the  time,  so  accurately,  that  an  Indian 
could  tell  within  twelve  or  twenty-four  hours  the  month  and  the 
day  of  the  month,  when  the  record  was  set  up.1 

It  is  even  related  of  the  Indians  of  Virginia,  that  they  re- 
corded time  by  certain  hieroglyphic  wheels,  which  they  called 
"Sagkokok  Quiacosough,"  or  "record  of  the  gods."  These 
wheels  had  sixty  spokes,  each  for  a  year,  as  if  to  mark  the 
ordinary  age  of  man,  and  they  were  painted  on  skins  kept  by 
the  principal  priests  in  the  temples.  They  marked  on  each 
spoke  or  division  a  hieroglyphic  figure,  to  show  the  memorable 
events  of  the  year.  John  Lederer  saw  one  in  a  village  culled 

1  flarmon,  p.  371. 


PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING.  91 

Pommacomek,  on  which  the  year  of  the  first  arrival  of  the 
Europeans  was  marked  by  a  swan  spouting  fire  and  smoke  from 
its  ruouth.  The  white  plumage  of  the  bird  and  its  living  on  the 
water  indicated  the  white  faces  of  the  Europeans  and  their 
coming  by  sea,  while  the  fire  and  smoke  coming  from  its  mouth 
meant  their  firearms.1  Thus  the  ancient  Mexicans  (as  well  as 
the  civilized  nations  of  Central  America,  who  used  a  similar 
system)  can  only  claim  to  have  dated  their  records  more  gene- 
rally and  systematically  than  the  ruder  North  American  tribes. 

The  usual  way  of  recording  series  of  years  among  the  Mexi- 
cans has  been  often  described.  It  consists  in  the  use  of  four 
symbols — tochtli,  acatl,  tecpatl,  calli,  i.e.  rabbit,  cane,  cutt'utij- 
stone,  house,  each  symbol  being  numbered  by  dots  from  1  to  13, 
making  thus  52  distinct  signs.  Each  year  of  a  cycle  of  52  has 
thus  a  distinct  numbered  symbol  belonging  to  it  alone,  the 
numbering  of  course  not  going  beyond  13.  These  numbered 
symbols  are,  however,  not  arranged  in  their  reasonable  order, 
but  the  signs  change  at  the  same  time  as  the  numbers,  till  all 
the  52  combinations  are  exhausted,  the  order  being  1  rabbit, 
2  cane,  3  knife,  4  house,  5  rabbit,  6  cane,  and  so  on.  I  have 
pointed  out  elsewhere  the  singular  coincidence  of  a  Mexican 
cycle  with  an  ordinary  French  or  English  pack  of  playing-cards, 
which,  arranged  on  this  plan,  as  for  instance  ace  of  hearts,  2  of 
spades,  3  of  diamonds,  4  of  clubs,  5  of  hearts  again,  and  so  on, 
forms  an  exact  counterpart  of  an  Aztec  cycle  of  52  years.  The 
account  of  days  was  kept  by  series  combined  in  a  similar  way, 
but  in  different  numbers. - 

The  extraordinary  analogy  between  the  Mexican  system  of 
reckoning  years  in  cycles,  and  that  still  in  use  over  a  great  part 
of  Asia,  forms  the  strongest  point  of  Humboldt's  argument  for 
the  connexion  of  the  Mexicans  with  Eastern  Asia,  and  the  re- 
markable character  of  the  coincidence  is  greatly  enforced  by  the 
fact,  that  this  complex  arrangement  answers  no  useful  purpose 
whatever,  inasmuch  as  mere  counting  by  numbers,  or  by  signs 

1  '  Journal  des  Scavans,'  1681,  p.  46.     Sir  W.  Talbot,  '  The  Discoveries  of  John 
Lederer  ; '  London,  1672,  p.  4.    Humboldt,  '  Vues  des  Cordilleres  ; '  Paris,  1810-12, 
pi.  xiii. 

2  Tjlor,  '  Mexico  and  the  Mexicans  ; '  London,  IStil,  p.  239. 


92  PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING. 

numbered  in  regular  succession,  would  have  been  a  far  better 
arrangement.  It  may  perhaps  have  been  introduced  for  some 
astrological  purpose. 

The  historical  picture-writings  of  the  Mexicans  seem  for  the 
most  part  very  bare  and  dull  to  us,  who  know  and  care  so  little 
about  their  history.  They  consist  of  records  of  wars,  famines, 
migrations,  sacrifices,  and  so  forth,  names  of  persons  and  places 
being  indicated  by  symbolic  pictures  attached  to  them,  as  King 
Itzcoatl,  or  "  knife-snake,"  by  a  serpent  with  stone  knives  on  its 
back;  Tzompanco,  or  "the  place  of  a  skull,"  now  Zumpango, 
by  a  picture  of  a  sknll  skewered  on  a  bar  between  two  upright 
posts,  as  enemies'  skulls  used  to  be  set  up ;  Chapultepec,  or 
"  grasshopper  hill,"  by  a  hill  and  a  grasshopper,  and  so  on,  or 
by  more  properly  phonetic  characters,  such  as  will  be  presently 
described.  The  positions  of  footprints,  arrows,  etc.,  serve  as 
guides  to  the  direction  of  marches  and  attacks,  in  very  much  the 
same  way  as  may  be  seen  in  Catlin's  drawing  of  the  pictured 
robe  of  Ma-to-toh-pa,  or  "  Four  Bears."  The  mystical  paint- 
ings which  relate  to  religion  and  astrology  are  seldom  capable  of 
any  independent  interpretation,  for  the  same  reasons  which  make 
it  impossible  to  read  the  pictured  records  of  songs  and  charms 
used  further  north,  namely,  that  they  do  not  tell  their  stories  in 
full,  but  only  recall  them  to  the  minds  of  those  who  are  already 
acquainted  with  them.  The  paintings  which  represent  the 
methodically  arranged  life  of  the  Aztecs  from  childhood  to  old 
age,  have  more  human  interest  about  them  than  all  the  rest  put 
together.  In  judging  the  Mexican  picture-writings  as  a  means 
of  record,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  though  we  can  under- 
stand them  to  a  considerable  extent,  we  should  have  made  very 
little  progress  in  deciphering  them,  were  it  not  that  there  are  a 
number  of  interpretations,  made  in  writing  from  the  explanations 
given  by  Indians,  so  that  the  traditions  of  the  art  have  never 
been  wholly  lost.  Some  few  of  the  Mexican  pictures  now  in 
existence  may  perhaps  be  original  documents  made  before  the 
arrival  of  the  Spaniards,  and  great  part  of  those  drawn  since  are 
certainly  copied,  wholly  or  in  part,  from  such  original  pictures. 

It  is  to  M.  Aubin,  of  Paris,  a  most  zealous  student  of  Mexi- 
can antiquities,  that  we  owe  our  first  clear  knowledge  of  a  phe- 


PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING.  93 

nomenon  of  great  scientific  interest  in  the  history  of  writing 
This  is  a  well-defined  system  of  phonetic  characters,  which 
Clavigero  and  Humboldt  do  not  seem  to  have  been  aware  of,  as 
it  does  not  appear  in  their  descriptions  of  the  art.1  Humholdt 
indeed  speaks  of  vestiges  of  phonetic  hieroglyphics  among  the 
Aztecs,  but  the  examples  he  gives  are  only  names  in  which 
meaning,  rather  than  mere  sound,  is  represented,  as  in  the  pic- 
tures of  a  face  and  water  for  Axayacatl,  or  "  Water-Face,"  five 
dots  and  a  flower  for  Macuilxochitl,  or  "Five-Flowers."  So 
Clavigero  gives  in  his  list  the  name  of  King  Itzcoatl,  or  "  Knife- 
Snake,"  as  represented  by  a  picture  of  a  snake  with  stone  knives 
upon  its  back,  a  more  genuine  drawing  of  which  is  given  here 
(Fig.  8),  from  the  Le  Tellier  Codex.  This  is  mere  picture-writ- 
ing, but  the  way  in  which 
the  same  king's  name  is 
written  in  the  Vergara  Co- 
dex, as  shown  in  Fig.  9, 
is  something  very  different. 
Here  the  first  syllable,  itz,  Fig>  8'  Fig>  9' 

is  indeed  represented  by  a  weapon  armed  with  blades  of  obsidian, 
itz(tli) ;  but  the  rest  of  the  word,  coatl,  though  it  means  snake, 
is  written,  not  by  a  picture  of  a  snake,  but  by  an  earthen  pot, 
co(mitl),  and  above  it  the  sign  of  water,  a(tl).  Here  we  have 
real  phonetic  writing,  for  the  name  is  not  to  be  read,  according 
to  sense,  "knife-kettle-water,"  but  only  according  to  the  sound 
of  the  Aztec  words,  Itz-co-atl.  Again,  in  Fig.  10,  in  the  name 
of  Teocaltitlan,  which  means  "the  place  of  the 
god's  house,"  the  different  syllables  (with  the 
exception  of  the  ti,  which  is  only  put  in  for 
euphony)  are  written  by  (b)  lips,  (c)  a  path 
(with  footmarks  on  it),  (a)  a  house,  (d)  teeth. 
What  this  combination  of  pictures  means  is 
only  explained  by  knowing  that  lips,  path, 
house,  teeth,  are  called  in  Aztec,  ten(tli),  o(tli), 
cal(li),  tlan(tli),  and  thus  come  to  stand  for  the  word  Te-o-cal- 
(ti)-tlan.  The  device  is  perfectly  familiar  to  us  in  what  is  called 

1  Clavigero,  'Storia  Antica  del  Messico  ; '  Cesena,  1780-1,  voL  ii.  pp.  191,  etc., 
248,  etc.     Huinboldt,  '  Vues  des  Cord.,'  pi.  xiii. 


94  PICTURE-WRITING  AND   WORD-WRITING. 

a  "  rebus,"  as  where  Prior  Burton's  name  is  sculptured  in  St. 
Saviour's  Church  as  a  cask  with  a  thistle  on  it,  "  burr-tun." 
Indeed,  the  puzzles  of  this  kind  in  children's  books  keep  alive 
to  our  own  day  the  great  transition  stage  from  picture-writing 
to  word-writing,  the  highest  intellectual  effort  of  one  period  in 
our  history  coming  down,  as  so  often  happens,  to  be  the  child's 
play  of  a  later  time. 

M.  Aubin  may  be  considered  as  the  discoverer  of  these  pho- 
netic signs  in  the  Mexican  pictures,  or  at  least  he  is  the  first 
who  has  worked  them  out  systematically  and  published  a  list  of 
them.1     But  the  ancient  written  interpretations  have  been  stand- 
ing for  centuries  to  prove  their  existence.     Thus,  in 
the  Mendoza  Codex,  the  name  of  a  place,  pictured 
as   in  Fig.   11  by  a  fishing-net  and  teeth,   is   in- 
terpreted   Matlatlan,   that   is  "  Net-Place."     Now, 
m-itki(tl)  means  a  net,  and  so  far  the  name  is  a  pic- 
ture, but  the  teeth,  tlan(tli),  are  used,  not  pictorially 
but  phonetically,  for  tlan,  place.     Other  more  com- 
plicated names,  such  as  Acolma,  Quauhpanoayan,  etc.,  are  written 
in  like  manner  in  phonetic  symbols  in  the  same  document.2 

There  is  no  sufficient  reason  to  make  us  doubt  that  this 
purely  phonetic  writing  was  of  native  Mexican  origin,  and  after 
the  Spanish  Conquest  they  turned  it  to  account  in  a  new  and 
curious  way.  The  Spanish  missionaries,  when  embarrassed  l>y 
the  difficulty  of  getting  the  converts  to  remember  their  Ave 
Marias  and  Paternosters,  seeing  that  the  words  were  of  course 
mere  nonsense  to  them,  were  helped  out  by  the  Indians  them- 
selves, who  substituted  Aztec  words  as  near  in  sound  as  might 
be  to  the  Latin,  and  wrote  down  the  pictured  equivalents  for 
these  words,  which  enabled  them  to  remember  the  required 
formulas.  Torquemada  and  Las  Casas  have  recorded  two  in- 
stances of  this  device,  that  Pater  noster  was  written  by  a  flag 
(pantli)  and  a  prickly  pear  (nochtli),  while  the  sign  of  water, 
a(tl),  combined  with  that  of  aloe,  me(tl),  made  a  compound  word 

1  Aubin,  in  '  Revue  Orientale  et  .Am^ricaine,'  vole,  iii.-v.  Brasseur,  '  Hist,  des 
Nat.  Civ.  du  Mexiqr.e  et  de  1'Ameriqne  Centrale;'  Paris,  1857-9,  vol.  i.  An  attempt 
to  prove  the  existence  of  something  more  nearly  approaching  alphabetic  signs  (^Rev., 
vol.  iv.  p.  276-7  ;  Brasseur,  p.  Ixviii. )  requires  much  clearer  evidence. 

*  Kingstorough,  vol.  i.,  and  Exj.1.  in  vol.  vi. 


PICTURE-WRITING   AND   WORD-WRITING.  95 

ametl,  which  would  mean  "  water-aloe,"  but  in  sound  made 
a  very  tolerable  substitute  for  Amen.1  But  M.  Aubin  has 
actually  found  the  beginning  of  a  Paternoster  of  this  kind  in  the 
metropolitan  library  of  Mexico  (Fig.  12),  made  with  a  fla<*, 
pan(tli},  a  stone,  te(tl),  a  prickly 
pear,  noch(tli),  and  again  a  stone, 
te(tl),  and  which  would  read  Pa- 
te noch-te,  or  perhaps  Pa-tctl  Pa'  te  noch-  <*• 
noch-tetl.2  Fig-  12' 

After  the  conquest,  when  the  Spaniards  were  hard  at  work 
introducing  their  own  religion  and  civilization  among  the  con- 
quered Mexicans,  they  found  it  convenient  to  allow  the  old 
picture-writing  still  to  be  used,  even  in  legal  documents.  It 
disappeared  in  time,  of  course,  being  superseded  in  the  long-run 
by  the  alphabet ;  but  it  is  to  this  transition-period  that  we  owe 
many,  perhaps  most,  of  the  picture-documents  still  preserved. 
Copies  of  old  historical  paintings  were  made  and  continued  to 
dates  after  the  arrival  of  Cortes,  and  the  use  of  records  written 
in  pictures,  or  in  a  mixture  of  pictures  and  Spanish  or  Aztec 
words  in  ordinary  writing,  relating  to  lawsuits,  the  inheritance 
of  property,  genealogies,  etc.,  were  in  constant  use  for  many 
years  later,  and  special  officers  were  appointed  under  government 
to  interpret  such  documents.  To  this  transition-period,  the 
writing  whence  the  name  of  Teocaltitlan  (Fig.  10)  is  taken, 
clearly  belongs,  as  appears  by  the  drawing  of  the  house  with  its 
arc-lied  door. 

A  genealogical  table  of  a  native  family  in  the  Christy  Museum 
is  as  good  a  record  of  this  time  of  transition  as  could  well  be 
cited.  The  names  in  it  are  written,  but  are  accompanied  by 
male  and  female  heads  drawn  in  a  style  that  is  certainly  Aztec. 
The  names  themselves  tell  the  story  of  the  change  that  was 
going  on  in  the  country.  One  branch  of  the  family,  among 
whom  are  to  be  read  the  names  of  Citlalmecatl,  or  "  Star-Xeck- 
lace,"  and  Cohuacihuatl,  or  "  Snake- Woman,"  ends  in  a  lady 
with  the  Spanish  name  of  Justa ;  while  another  branch,  begin- 
ning with  such  names  as  Tlapalxilotzin  and  Xiuhcozcatzin, 
finishes  with  Juana  and  her  children  Andres  and  Francisco. 
1  Brasseur,  vol.  i.  p.  xli.  2  Aubin,  Rev.  0.  and  A.,  vol.  iii.  p.  255. 


96  PICTURE- WRITING  AND  WORD- WRITING. 

The  most  thoroughly  native  thing  in  the  whole  is  a  figure 
referring  to  an  ancestor  of  Justa's,  and  connected  with  his  name 
by  a  line  of  footprints  to  show  how  the  line  is  to  he  followed,  in 
true  Aztec  fashion.  The  figure  itself  is  a  head  drawn  in  native 
stvle,  with  the  eye  in  full  front,  though  the  face  is  in  profile,  in 
much  the  same  way  as  an  Egyptian  would  have  drawn  it,  and  it 
is  set  in  a  house  as  a  symbol  of  dignity,  having  written  over 
against  it  the  high  title  of  Ompamozcaltitotzaqualtzinco,  which, 
if  I  may  trust  the  imperfect  dictionary  of  Molina,  and  my  own 
weak  knowledge  of  Aztec,  means  "His  excellency  our  twice  skilful 
gaoler." 

The  importance  of  this  Mexican  phonetic  system  in  the 
History  of  the  Art  of  Writing  may  he  perhaps  made  clearer 
by  a  comparison  of  the  Aztec  pictures  with  the  Egyptian 
hieroglyphics. 

Egyptian  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  consist  of  figures  of  objects, 
animate  and  inanimate,  men  and  animals,  and  parts  of  them, 
plants,  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  an  immense  number  of  different 
weapons,  tools,  and  articles  of  the  most  miscellaneous  character. 
These  figures  are  arranged  in  upright  columns  or  horizontal 
bands,  and  are  to  be  read  in  succession,  but  they  are  not  all 
intended  to  act  upon  the  mind  in  the  same  way.  When  an 
ordinary  inscription  is  taken  to  pieces,  it  is  found  that  the  figures 
composing  it  fall  into  two  great  classes.  Part  of  them  are  to  be 
read  and  understood  as  pictures,  a  drawing  of  a  horse  for  "  horse," 
a  branch  for  "  wood,"  etc.,  upon  the  same  principle  as  in  any 
savage  picture-writing.  The  other  part  of  the  figures  are  pho- 
netic. How  they  came  to  be  so,  seems  plain  from  cases  where 
we  find  the  same  picture  sometimes  used  to  stand  for  the  object 
it  represents,  and  sometimes  for  the  sound  of  that  object's  name, 
after  the  manner  just  described  of  the  rebus.  Thus  the  picture 
of  a  star  may  represent  a  star,  called  in  Egyptian  sba,  and  the 
picture  of  a  kid  may  stand  for  a  kid,  called  in  Egyptian  ab ;  but 
these  pictures  may  also  be  brought  in  to  help  in  the  spelling  of 
the  words  sba,  "door,"  and  ab,  "  thirst,"  so  that  here  they  have 
passed  into  phonetic  signs.1  It  is  not  always  possible  to  dis- 
tinguish whether  a  hieroglyph  is  used  as  a  syllable  or  a  letter. 
*  Eenouf,  '  Elementary  Grammar  of  the  Ancient  Egyptian  Language,'  London,  1875. 


PICTURE-WRITING   AXD   WORD-WRITING.  07 

But  it  is  clear  that  from   an   early  period  the  Egyptians  had 

v        JL  O*/-  JL 

chosen  a  number  of  hieroglyphs  to  be  used  as  vowels  and  con- 
sonants to  write  words  with,  that  is  to  say,  they  had  invented 
alphabetic  writing.  Their  use  of  hieroglyphs  in  all  these  stages, 
picture,  syllable,  letter,  is  of  great  interest  in  the  history  of  writ- 
ing, as  giving  the  whole  course  of  development  by  which  a  picture, 
of  a  mouth  for  instance,  meant  first  simply  mouth,  then  the  name 
of  mouth  ro,  and  lastly  dropped  its  vowel  and  became  the  letter  r. 
Of  these  three  steps,  the  Mexicans  made  the  first  two. 

In  Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  special  figures  are  not  always  set 
apart  for  phonetic  use.  At  least,  a  number  of  signs  are  used 
sometimes  as  letters,  and  sometimes  as  pictures,  in  which 
latter  case  they  are  often  marked  with  a  stroke.  Thus  the 
mouth,  with  a  stroke  to  it,  is  usually  (though  not  always) 
pictorial,  as  it  were,  "  one  mouth,"  while  without  the  stroke  it 
is  r  or  ro,  and  so  on.  The  words  of  a  sentence  are  frequently 
written  by  a  combination  of  these  two  methods,  that  is,  by 
spelling  the  word  first,  and  then  adding  a  picture  sign  to  re- 
move all  doubt  as  to  its  meaning.  Thus  the  letters  read  as 
fnli  in  an  inscription,  followed  by  a  drawing  of  a  worm,  mean 
"worm"  (Coptic,  fent],  and  the  letters  kk,  followed  by  the 
picture  of  a  star  hanging  from  heaven,  mean  "  darkness  "  (Cop- 
tic, kake).  There  may  even  be  words  written  in  ancient  hiero- 
glyphics which  are  still  alive  in  English.  Thus  hbn,  followed 
by  two  signs,  one  of  which  is  the  determinative  for  wood,  is 
ebony;  and  tb,  followed  by  the  drawing  of  a  brick,  is  a  sun- 
dried  brick,  Coptic  tube,  tobf,  which  seems  to  have  passed  into 
the  Arabic  tob,  or  with  the  article,  attob,  thence  into  Spanish 
through  the  Moors,  as  a<lob<>,  in  which  form,  and  as  tlobie,  it  is 
current  among  the  English  speaking  population  of  America. 

The  Egyptians  do  not  seem  to  have  entirely  got  rid  of  their 
determinative  pictures  even  in  the  latest  form  of  their  native 
writing,  the  demotic  character.  How  it  came  to  pass  that, 
having  come  so  early  to  the  use  of  phonetic  writing,  they  were 
later  than  other  nations  in  throwing  off  the  crutches  of  picture- 
signs,  is  a  curious  question.  No  doubt  the  poverty  of  their 
language,  which  expressed  so  many  things  by  similar  combina- 
tions of  consonants,  and  the  indefmiteness  of  their  vowels,  had 


98  PICTURE- WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING. 

to  do  with  it,  just  as  we  see  that  poverty  of  language,  and  the 
consequent  necessity  of  making  similar  words  do  duty  for  many 
different  ideas,  has  led  the  Chinese  to  use  in  their  writing  de- 
terminative signs,  the  so-called  keys  or  radicals,  which  were 
originally  pictures,  though  now  hardly  recognizahle  as  such. 
Nothing  proves  that  the  Egyptian  determinative  signs  were  not 
mere  useless  lumber,  so  well  as  the  fact  that  if  there  had  been 
none,  the  deciphering  of  the  hieroglyphics  in  modern  times 
could  hardly  have  gone  a  step  beyond  the  first  stage,  the 
spelling  out  of  the  kings'  names. 

We  thus  see  that  the  ancient  Egyptians  and  the  Aztecs  made 
in  much  the  same  way  the  great  step  from  picture-writing  to 
word-writing.  To  have  used  the  picture  of  an  object  to  repre- 
sent the  sound  of  the  root  or  crude-form  of  its  name,  as  the 
Mexicans  .did  in  drawing  a  hand,  ma(itl),  to  represent,  not  a 
hand,  but  the  sound  ma;  and  teeth,  tlan(tli),  to  represent,  not 
teeth,  but  the  sound  tlan,  though  they  do  not  seem  to  have 
applied  it  to  anything  but  the  writing  of  proper  names  and 
foreign  words,  is  sufficient  to  show  that  they  had  started  on 
the  road  which  led  the  Egyptians  to  a  system  of  syllabic,  and 
to  some  extent  of  alphabetic  writing.  There  is  even  evidence 
that  the  Maya  nation  of  Yucatan,  the  ruins  of  whose  temples 
and  palaces  are  so  well  known  from  the  travels  of  Catherwood 
and  Stephens,  not  only  had  a  system  of  phonetic  writing,  but 
used  it  for  writing  ordinary  words  and  sentences.  A  Spanish 
MS.,  "Relacion  de  las  Cosas  de  Yucatan,"  bearing  the  date  of 
1561,  and  the  name  of  Diego  de  Landa,  Bishop  of  Merida,  has 
been  published  by  the  Abbe  Brasseur,1  and  contains  not  only 
a  set  of  chronological  signs  resembling  the  figures  of  the 
Central  American  sculptures  and  the  Dresden  Codex,  but  a 
list  of  over  thirty  characters,  some  alphabetic,  as  a,  i,  m,  n  ; 
some  syllabic,  as  ku,  ti ;  and  a  sentence,  ma  in  knti,  "I  will 
not,"  written  with  them.  The  genuineness  of  this  information, 
and  its  bearing  on  the  interpretation  of  the  inscriptions  on  the 
monuments,  are  matters  for  future  investigation. 

Yet  another   people,  the    Chinese,  made   the   advance  from 

1  Brasseur,  '  Relation  dee  Choses  de  Yucatan  de  Diego  de  Landa, '  etc. ;  Paris  and 
London,  1864. 


PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING.  99 

pictures  to  phonetic  writing,  and  it  was  perhaps  because  of  tho 
peculiar  character  of  their  spoken  language  that  they  did  it  in 
so  different  a  way.  The  whole  history  of  their  art  of  writing 
still  lies  open  to  us.  They  began  by  drawing  the  plainest 
outlines  of  sun,  moon,  tortoise,  fish,  boy,  hatchet,  tree,  dog, 
and  so  forth,  and  thus  forming  characters  which  are  still  extant, 
and  are  known  as  the  Ku-ican,  or  "ancient  pictures."1  Such 
pictures,  though  so  much  altered  that,  were  not  their  ancient 
forms  still  to  be  seen,  it  would  hardly  be  safe  to  say  they  had 
ever  been  pictures  at  all,  are  still  used  to  some  extent  in  Chinese 
writing,  as  in  the  characters  for  man,  sun,  moon,  tree,  etc. 
There  are  also  combined  pictorial  signs,  as  water  and  eye  for 
"tears,"  and  other  kinds  of  purely  symbolic  characters.  But 
the  great  mass  of  characters  at  present  in  use  are  double,  con- 
sisting of  two  signs,  one  for  sound,  the  other  for  sense.  They 
are  called  hing-shing,  that  is,  "  pictures  and  sounds."  In  one 
of  the  two  signs  the  transition  from  the .  picture  of  the  object 
to  the  sound  of  its  name  has  taken  place ;  in  the  other  it  has 
not,  but  it  is  still  a  picture,  and  its  use  (something  like  that  of 
the  determinative  in  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics)  is  to  define 
which  of  the  meanings  belonging  to  the  spoken  word  is  to  be 
taken.  Thus  a  ship  is  called  in  Chinese  chow,  so  a  picture  of  a 
ship  stands  for  the  sound  chow.  But  the  word  chow  means 
several  other  things  ;  and  to  show  which  is  intended  in  any 
particular  instance,  a  determinative  sign  or  key  is  attached  to 
it.  Thus  the  ship  joined  with  the  sign  of  water  stands  for 
choir,  "  ripple,"  with  that  of  speech  for  chow,  "  loquacity," 
with  that  of  fire,  for  chow ,  "  flickering  of  flame ;  "  and  so  on  for 
"waggon-pole,"  "fluff,"  and  several  other  things,  which  have 
little  in  common  but  the  name  of  choir.  If  we  agreed  that 
pictures  of  a  knife,  a  tree,  an  0,  should  be  determinative  signs 
of  things  which  have  to  do  with  cutting,  with  plants,  and  with 
numbers,  we  might  make  a  drawing  of  a  pear  to  do  duty,  with 
the  assistance  of  one  of  these  determinative  signs,  for  pare,  pear, 
pair.  In  a  language  so  poverty-stricken  as  the  Chinese,  which 
only  allows  itself  so  small  a  stock  of  words,  and  therefore  has 

1  J.  M.  Gallery,  ' Systema Phonetician  Scripturas Sinicae, '  parti.;  Macao,  1841, p.  29. 
Endlicher,  Chin.  Gramm.,  p.  3,  etc. 

H  2 


100  PICTURE-WRITING  AXD  WORD-WRITING. 

to  make  the  same  sound  stand  for  so  many  different  ideas,  ths 
use  of  such  a  system  needs  no  explanation. 

Looking  now  at  the  history  of  purely  alphabetical  writing,  it 
has  heen  shown  that  there  is  one  alphabet,  that  of  the  Egyptian 
hieroglyphics,  the  development  of  which  (and  of  course  of  its 
derived  forms)  is  clearly  to  be  traced  from  the  stage  of  pure 
pictures  to  that  of  pure  letters.  It  was  long  ago  noticed  that 
gome  of  the  old  Egyptian  hieratic  characters  have  been  directly 
retained  in  use  in  Egypt.  The  Coptic  Christians  still  keep  up 
in  their  churches  their  sacred  language,  which  is  a  direct  de- 
scendant of  the  ancient  Egyptian ;  and  the  Coptic  alphabet,  in 
which  it  is  written  and  printed,  was  formed  in  early  Christian 
times  by  adding  to  the  Greek  alphabet  certain  new  characters 
to  express  articulations  not  properly  belonging  to  the  Greek. 
Among  these  additional  letters,  at  least  four  are  clearly  seen  to 
be  taken  from  the  old  hieroglyphics,  probably  from  their  hieratic 
or  cursive  form,  and  thus  to  preserve  an  unbroken  tradition  at 
once  from  the  period  of  picture-writing  to  that  of  the  alphabet, 
and  from  times  earlier  than  the  building  of  the  pyramids  up  to 
the  present  day. 

It  has  long  been  known  that  the  great  family  of  alphabets  to 
which  the  Roman  letters  belong  with  the  Greek,  the  Gothic, 
the  Northern  Runes,  etc.,  are  to  be  traced  back  into  connection 
with  the  Phoenician  and  Old  Hebrew  characters,  the  very  word 
alphabet  (alpha-beta,  aleph-beth)  being  an  acknowledgment  of 
the  derivation  from  Semitic  writing.  But  sufficient  proof  was 
wanting  as  to  how  these  ancient  Semitic  letters  came  to  be 
made.  The  theory  maintained  by  Gesenius,  that  the  Phoenician 
and  Old  Hebrew  letters  are  rude  pictures  of  Aleph  the  Ox, 
Beth  the  House,  Gimel  the  Camel,  etc.,  rested  on  resemblances 
which  are  mostly  slight  and  indefinite.  Also  the  supposition 
that  the  names  of  the  letters  date  from  the  time  when  these 
letters  were  first  formed,  and  thus  record  the  very  process  of 
their  formation,  is  a  very  bold  one,  considering  that  we  know 
by  experience  how  slight  the  bond  is  which  may  attach  names 
to  letters.  Two  alphabets,  which  are  actually  descended  from 
that  which  is  also  represented  by  the  Phoenician  and  Hebrew, 
have  taken  to  themselves  new  sets  of  names  belonging  to  the 


PICTURE-WRITING   AND   WORD-WRITING.  101 

languages  they  were  used  to  write,  simply  choosing  for  each 
letter  a  word  which  began  with  it.  The  names  of  our  Anglo- 
Saxon  K unes  are  Feoh  (cattle,  fee),  Ur  (urus,  wild  ox),  Thorn 
(thorn),  Hiigl  (hail),  Nead  (need),  and  so  on,  for  F,  U,  Th,  H, 
N,  etc.,  this  English  list  corresponding  in  great  measure  with 
those  belonging  to  the  Scandinavian  and  German  forms  of  the 
Runic  alphabet.  Again,  in  the  old  Slavonic  alphabet,  the 
names  of  Dobro  (good),  Zemlja  (land),  Liodc  (people),  Slovo 
(word),  are  given  to  D,  Z,  L,  S.  Even  if  it  be  granted 
that  there  is  an  amount  of  resemblance  between  the  letters 
and  their  names  in  the  old  Phoenician  and  Hebrew  alpha- 
bets, which  is  wanting  in  these  later  ones,  it  does  not  follow 
from  thence  that  the  shape  of  the  Hebrew  letters  was  taken 
from  their  names.  Letters  may  be  named  in  two  ways,  acro- 
stically,  by  names  chosen  because  they  begin  with  the  right 
letters,  or  descriptively,  as  when  we  speak  of  certain  characters 
as  pothooks  and  hangers.  A  combination  of  the  two  methods, 
by  choosing  out  of  the  words  beginning  with  the  proper  letter 
such  as  had  also  some  suitability  to  describe  its  shape,  would 
produce  much  such  a  result  as  we  see  in  the  names  of  the 
Hebrew  letters,  and-  would  moreover  serve  a  direct  object  in 
helping  children  to  learn  them.  It  is  easy  to  choose  such 
names  in  English,  as  Arch  or  Arrowhead  for  A,  Bow  or 
Butterfly  for  B,  Curve  or  Crescent  for  C;  and  we  may  even 
pick  out  of  the  Hebrew  lexicon  other  names  which  fit  about  as 
well  as  the  present  set.  Thus,  though  the  list  of  names  of 
letters,  Aleph,  Beth,  Gimel,  and  the  rest,  is  certainly  a  very 
ancient  and  interesting  record,  its  value  may  lie  not  in  its 
taking  us  back  to  the  pictorial  origin  of  the  Hebrew  letters,  but 
in  its  preserving  for  us  among  the  Semitic  race  the  earliest 
known  version  of  the  "  A  was  an  Archer." 

After  the  deciphering  of  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphs,  it  was 
seen  to  be  probable  that  not  only  were  the  ancient  Egyptians 
the  first  inventors  of  alphabetic  writing,  but  that  the  Phoenician 
and  Hebrew  alphabet  was  itself  borrowed  from  the  Egyptian 
hieroglyph-alphabet.  Mr.  Samuel  Sharpe  made  the  attempt  to 
bring  together  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphs  in  their  pictorial  form 
with  the  square  Hebrew  characters.  The  Yicomte  de  Route's 


102  PICTURE- WRITING  AND  WORD- WRITING. 

comparison,  left  for  years  unpublished,  of  the  Egyptian  hieratic 
characters  with  the  old  Phoenician  letters,  confirms  Mr.  Sharpe's 
view  as  to  the  letters  Vav  and  Shin  (/  and  sh),  and  on  the 
whole,  though  identifying  several  characters  on  the  strength  of 
too  slight  a  resemblance,  it  lays  what  seems  a  solid  foundation 
for  the  opinion  that  the  main  history  of  alphabetic  writing  is 
open  to  us,  from  its  beginning  in  the  Egyptian  pictures  to  the 
use  of  these  pictures  to  express  sounds,  which  led  to  the  forma- 
tion of  the  Egyptian  mixed  pictorial,  syllabic,  and  alphabetic 
writing,  from  which  was  derived  the  pure  alphabet  known  to  us 
in  its  early  Phoenician,  Moabite,  and  Hebrew  stages,  \\hence 
the  Greek,  Latin,  and  numerous  other  derived  forms  come  down 
to  modern  times.1 

It  remains  to  point  out  the  possibility  of  one  people  getting 
the  art  of  writing  from  another,  without  taking  the  characters 
they  used  for  particular  letters.  Two  systems  of  letters,  or 
rather  of  characters  representing  syllables,  have  been  invented  in 
modern  times,  by  men  who  had  got  the  idea  of  representing 
sound  by  written  characters  from  seeing  the  books  of  civilized 
men,  and  applied  it  in  their  own  way  to  their  own  languages. 
Some  for.y  years  ago  a  half  breed  Cherokee  Indian,  nanud 
Sequoyah  (otherwise  George  Guess),  invented  an  ingenious 
system  of  writing  his  language  in  syllabic'  signs,  which  were 
adopted  by  the  missionaries,  and  came  into  common  use.  In 
the  table  given  by  Schoolcraft  there  are  eighty-five  such  signs, 
in  great  part  copied  or  modified  from  those  Sequoyah  had 
learnt  from  print ;  but  the  letter  D  is  to  be  read  a ;  the  letter 
M,  lu ;  the  figure  4,  se ;  and  so  on  through  E,  T,  i,  A,  and  a 
number  more.2  The  syllabic  system  invented  by  a  West  African 
negro,  Momoru  Doalu  Bukere,  was  found  in  use  in  the  Tei 
country,  about  fifteen  years  since.3  When  Europeans  inquired 

1  Sharpe,  'Egyptian  Hieroglyphics;'  London,  1861,  p.  17.  "Vte.  Em.  de  Rouge", 
'  Memoire  snr  I'Origine  Egyptienne  tie  1' Alphabet  Fhenicien,'  Paris,  1874.  In  former 
editions  of  the  present  work,  the  Egyptian  origin  of  the  alphabet  was  only  treated  as 
a  likely  supposition.  In  consequence  of  the  appearance  of  M.  de  Rouge's  argument 
since,  the  text  has  been  altered  to  embody  the  now  more  advanced  position  of  the 
subject.  [Note  to  3rd  Edition.] 

'  Schoolcraft,  part  ii.  p.  228.     Bastian,  vol.  i.-p.  423. 

3  Koelle,  '  Grammar  of  the  Vei  Language ; '  London,  1854,  p.  229,  etc.  J.  L. 
Wilson,  'Western  Africa ;'  London,  ISob',  p.  95. 


PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING.  103 

into  its  origin,  Doalu  said  that  the  invention  was  revealed  to  him 
in  a  dream  by  a  tall  venerable  white  man  in  a  long  coat,  who 
said  he  was  sent  by  other  white  men  to  bring  him  a  book,  and 
who  taught  him  some  characters  to  write  words  with.  Doalu 
awoke,  but  never  learnt  what  the  book  was  about.  So  he  called 
his  friends  together,  and  one  of  them  afterwards  had  another 
dream,  in  which  a  white  man  appeared  to  him,  and  told  him 
that  the  book  had  come  from  God.  It  appears  that  Doalu, 
when  he  was  a  boy,  had  really  seen  a  white  missionary,  and  had 
learnt  verses  from  the  English  Bible  from  him,  so  that  it  is 
pretty  clear  that  the  sight  of  a  printed  book  gave  him  the 
original  idea  which  he  worked  out  into  his  very  complete  and 
original  phonetic  system.  It  is  evident  from  Fig.  13  that  some 
part  of  the  characters  he  adopted  were  taken,  of  course  without 
any  reference  to  their  sound,  from  the  letters  he  had  seen  in 
print.  His  system  numbers  162  characters,  representing  mostly 
syllables,  as  a,  be,  bo,  dso,  fen,  gba  ;  but  sometimes  longer 
articulations,  as  scli,  sediya,  taro.  Though  it  is  almost  entirely 
and  purely  phonetic,  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that  it  includes 
three  genuine  picture-signs,  oo  gba,  "money;  "  0°0  Ini,  "  gun," 
(represented  by  bullets,)  and  *~x~  chi,  "  water,"  this  last  sign 
being  identical  with  that  which  stands  for  water  in  the  Egyptian 
hieroglyphics. 


B  &T,  K 

le  /en  aba  ale 

Fig.  13. 

It  appears  from  these  facts  that  the  transmission  of  the  art  of 
writing  does  not  necessarily  involve  a  detailed  transmission  of 
the  particular  signs  in  use,  and  the  difficulty  in  tracing  the 
origin  of  some  of  the  Semitic  characters  may  result  from  their 
having  been  made  in  the  same  way  as  these  American  and 
African  characters.  If  this  be  the  case,  there  is  an  end  of  all 
hope  of  tracing  them  any  further. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  observed  that  the  art  of  picture- 
writing  soon  dwindles  away  in  all  countries  when  word-writing 


10-i  PICTURE-WRITING  AND  WORD-WRITING. 

is  introduced,  yet  there  are  a  few  isolated  forms  in  which  it 
holds  its  own,  in  spite  of  writing  and  printing,  at  this  very 
d  .y.  The  so-called  Roman  numerals  are  still  in  use,  and  |  1 1 
1 1 1  are  as  plain  and  indisputable  picture-writing  as  any  sign 
on  an  Indian  scroll  of  birch-bark.  Why  V  and  X  mean  five 
and  ten  is  not  so  clear,  but  there  is  some  evidence  in  favour  of 
the  view  that  it  may  have  come  by  counting  fingers  or  strokes 
up  to  nine,  and  then  making  a  stroke  with  another  across  to 
mark  it,  somewhat  as  the  deaf-and-dumb  Massieu  tells  us  that, 
in  his  untaught  state,  his  fingers  taught  him  to  count  up  to 
ten,  and  then  he  made  a  mark.  Loskiel,  the  Moravian 
missionary,  says  of  the  Iroquois,  "  They  count  up  to  ten,  and 
make  a  cross ;  then  ten  again,  and  so  on,  till  they  have 
finished ;  then  they  take  the  tens  together,  and  make  with 
them  hundreds,  thousands,  and  hundreds  of  thousands."  l  A. 
more  modern  observer  says  of  the  distant  tribe  of  the  Creeks, 
that  they  reckon  by  tens,  and  that  in  recording  on  grave-posts 
the  years  of  age  of  the  deceased,  the  scalps  he  has  taken,  or 
the  war-parties  he  has  led,  they  make  perpendicular  strokes  for 
units,  and  a  cross  for  ten.2  The  Chinese  character  for  ten  is 
an  upright  cross ;  and  in  an  old  Chinese  account  of  the  life  of 
Christ,  it  is  said  that  "  they  made  a  very  large  and  heavy 
machine  of  wood,  resembling  the  character  ten,"  which  he 
carried,  and  to  which  he  was  nailed.3  The  Egyptians,  in  their 
hieroglyphic  character,  counted  by  upright  strokes  up  to  nine, 
and  then  made  a  special  sign  for  ten,  in  this  respect  resembling 
the  modern  Creek  Indians,  and  the  fact  that  the  Chinese  only 
count  |  ||  1 1 1  in  strokes,  and  go  on  with  an  X  for  four,  and 
then  with  various  other  symbols  till  they  come  to  -f-  or  ten, 
does  not  interfere  with  the  fact,  that  in  three  or  four  systems 
of  numeration,  so  far  as  we  know  independent  of  one  another, 
in  Italy,  China,  and  North  America,  more  or  less  of  the  earlier 
numerals  are  indicated  by  counted  strokes,  and  ten  by  a  crossed 
stroke.  Such  an  origin  for  the  Roman  X  ig  quite  consistent 
with  a  half  X  or  V  being  used  for  five,  to  save  making  a 

1  Loskiel,  Gesch.  der  Mission  der  evangelischen  Briider  ;  Barby,  1789,  p.  39. 
3  Schoolcraft,  part  i.  p.  273. 
Davis      The  Chinese  ; '  Loudon,  1851,  vol.  ii.  p.  176. 


PICTURE-WETTING   AND   WOED-WRITIXG.  105 

number   of  strokes,  which  would  be   difficult  to  count   at  a 
glance.1 

However  this  may  be,  the  pictorial  origin  of  |  1 1  1 1 1  is  be- 
yond doubt.  And  in  technical  writing,  such  terms  as  ~J~-square 
and  S-hook,  and  phrases  such  as  "  O  before  clock  4  min.,"  and 
"D  rises  at  8h.  35m.,"  survive  to  show  that  even  in  the  midst 
of  the  highest  European  civilization,  the  spirit  of  the  earliest  and 
rudest  form  of  writing  is  not  yet  quite  extinct. 

1  A  dactylic  origin  of  V,  as  being  a  rude  figure  of  the  open  hand,  with  thumb 
stretched  out,  and  fingers  close  together,  succeeding  the  |  ||  l||  |||l,  made  with  the 
upright  fingers,  has  been  propounded  by  Grotefend,  and  has  occurred  to  others.  It 
is  plausible,  but  wants  actual  evidence. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

IMAGES    AND    NAMES. 

THE  trite  comparison  of  savages  to  "  grown-up  children  "  is 
in  the  main  a  sound  one,  though  not  to  be  carried  out  too  strictly. 
In  the  uncivilized  American  or  Polynesian,  the  strength  of  body 
and  force  of  character  of  a  grown  man  are  combined  with  a  mental 
development  in  many  respects  not  beyond  that  of  a  young  child 
of  a  civilized  race.  It  has  been  already  noticed  how  naturally 
children  can  appreciate  and  understand  such  direct  expressions 
of  thought  as  the  gesture-language  and  picture-writing.  In  like 
manner,  the  use  of  dolls  or  images  as  an  assistance  to  the  opera- 
tions of  the  mind  is  familiar  to  all  children,  though  among  those 
who  grow  up  under  the  influences  of  civilized  society  it  is  mostly 
superseded  and  forgotten  in  after  life.  Few  educated  Europeans 
ever  thoroughly  realize  the  fact,  that  they  have  once  passed 
through  a  condition  of  mind  from  which  races  at  a  lower  state  of 
civilization  never  fully  emerge ;  but  this  is  certainly  the  case, 
and  the  European  child  playing  with  its  doll  furnishes  the  key 
to  several  of  the  mental  phenomena  which  distinguish  the  more 
highly  cultivated  races  of  mankind  from  those  lower  in  the  scale. 

"When  a  child  plays  with  a  doll  or  plaything,  the  toy  is  com- 
monly made  to  represent  in  the  child's  mind  some  imaginary 
object  which  is  more  or  less  like  it.  Wooden  soldiers,  for  in- 
stance, or  the  beasts  in  a  Noah's  ark,  have  a  real  resemblance 
•which  any  one  would  recognise  at  once  to  soldiers  and  beasts, 
and  all  that  the  child  has  to  do  is  to  suppose  them  bigger,  and 
alive,  and  to  consider  them  as  walking  of  themselves  when  they 
are  pushed  about.  But  an  imaginative  child  will  be  content 
with  much  less  real  resemblance  than  this.  It  will  bring  in  a 
larger  subjective  element,  and  make  a  dog  do  duty  for  a  horse,  or 


IMAGES  AND  NAMES.  107 

a  soldier  for  a  shepherd,  till  at  last  the  objective  resemblance 
almost  disappears,  and  a  bit  of  wood  may  be  dragged  about,  re- 
presenting a  ship  on  the  sea,  or  a  coach  on  the  road.  Here  the 
likeness  of  the  bit  of  wood  to  a  ship  or  a  coach  is  very  slight 
indeed ;  but  it  is  a  thing,  and  can  be  moved  about  in  an  appro- 
priate manner,  and  placed  in  a  suitable  position  with  respect  to 
other  objects.  Unlike  as  the  toy  may  be  to  what  it  represents 
in  the  child's  mind,  it  still  answers  a  purpose,  and  is  an  evident 
assistance  to  the  child  in  enabling  it  to  arrange  and  develop  its 
ideas,  by  working  the  objects  and  actions  and  stories  it  is  ac- 
quainted with  into  a  series  of  dramatic  pictures.  Of  how  much 
use  the  material  object  is  in  setting  the  mind  to  work,  may  be 
seen  by  taking  it  away  and  leaving  the  child  with  nothing  to  play 
with. 

At  an  early  age,  children  learn  more  from  play  than  from  teach- 
ing ;  and  the  use  of  toys  is  very  great  in  developing  their  minds 
by  giving  them  the  means  of,  as  it  were,  taking  a  scene  or  an 
event  to  pieces,  and  putting  its  parts  together  in  new  combina- 
tions, a  process  which  immensely  increases  the  definiteness  of 
the  children's  ideas  and  their  power  of  analysis.  It  is  because 
the  use  of  toys  is  principally  in  developing  the  subjective  side  of 
the  mind,  that  the  elaborate  figures  and  models  of  which  the  toy- 
shops have  been  full  of  late  years  are  of  so  little  use.  They  are 
carefully  worked  out  into  the  nicest  details  ;  but  they  are  models 
or  pictures,  not  playthings,  and  children,  who  know  quite  well 
what  it  is  they  want,  tire  of  them  in  a  few  hours,  unless,  indeed, 
they  can  break  them  up  and  make  real  toys  of  the  bits.  What 
a  child  wants  is  not  one  picture,  but  the  means  of  making  a 
thousand.  Objective  knowledge,  such  as  is  to  be  gained  from 
the  elaborate  doll's  houses  and  grocer's  shops  with  their  appur- 
tenances, may  be  got  in  plenty  elsewhere  by  mere  observation ; 
but  toys,  to  be  of  value  in  early  education,  should  be  separate,  so 
as  to  allow  of  their  being  arranged  in  any  variety  of  cornbii  at'.on, 
and  not  too  servile  and  detailed  copies  of  objects,  so  that  they 
may  not  be  mere  pictures,  but  symbols,  which  a  child  can  make 
to  stand  for  many  objects  with  the  aid  of  its  imagination. 

In  later  years,  and  among  highly  educated  people,  the  mental 
process  which  goes  on  in  a  child  playing  with  wooden  soldiers 


108  IMAGES  AND   NAMES. 

and  horses,  though  it  never  disappears,  must  be  sought  for  in 
the  midst  of  more  complex  phenomena.  Perhaps  nothing  in 
after  life  more  closely  resembles  the  effect  of  a  doll  upon  a  child, 
than  the  effect  of  the  illustrations  of  a  tale  upon  a  grown-up 
reader.  Here  the  objective  resemblance  is  very  indefinite  :  two 
artists  would  make  pictures  of  the  same  scene  that  were  very 
unlike  one  another,  the  very  persons  and  places  depicted  are 
imaginary,  and  yet  what  reality  and  definiteness  is  given  to  the 
scene  by  a  good  picture.  But  in  this  case  the  direct  action  of 
an  image  on  the  mind  complicates  itself  with  the  deepest  pro- 
blems of  painting  and  sculpture.  The  comparison  of  the  work- 
ings of  the  mind  of  the  uncivilized  man,  and  of  the  civilized 
child,  is  much  less  difficult. 

Mr.  Backhouse  one  day  noticed  in  Van  Diemen's  Land  a  native 
woman  arranging  several  stones  that  were  flat,  oval,  and  about 
two  inches  wide,  and  marked  in  various  directions  with  black 
and  red  lines.  These  he  learned  represented  absent  friends,  and 
one  larger  than  the  rest  stood  for  a  fat  native  woman  on  Flinders 
Island,  known  by  the  name  of  Mother  Brown.1  Similar  practices 
are  found  among  far  higher  races  than  the  ill-fated  Tasmanians. 
Among  some  North  American  tribes,  a  mother  who  has  lost  a 
child  keeps  its  memory  ever  present  to  her  by  filling  its  cradle 
with  black  feathers  and  quills,  and  carrying  it  about  with  her  for 
a  year  or  more.  "When  she  stops  anywhere,  she  sets  up  the 
cradle  and  talks  to  it  as  she  goes  about  her  work,  just  as  she 
would  have  done  if  the  dead  baby  had  been  still  alive  within  it.3 
Here  we  have  no  image ;  but  in  Africa  we  find  a  rude  doll,  re- 
presenting the  child,  kept  as  a  memorial.  It  is  well  known  that 
over  a  great  part  of  Africa  the  practice  prevails,  that  whenever 
twin  children  are  born,  one  or  both  of  them  are  immediately 
killed.  Among  the  Wanyamwezi,  one  of  the  two  is  always  killed ; 
and,  strange  to  say,  "  the  universal  custom  amongst  these  tribes, 
is  for  the  mother  to  wrap  a  gourd  or  calabash  in  skins,  to  place 
it  to  sleep  with,  and  feed  it  like,  the  survivor."3  Bastian  saw 
Indian  women  in  Peru,  who  had  lost  an  infant,  carrying  about 

1  Backhouse,   'Narrative  of  a  Visit  to  the  Australian  Colonies;'  London,  1843, 
p.  104    . 

2  C.ttlin,  vol.  ii.  p.  133.  s  Burton,  'Central  Africa,'  voL  ii.  p.  23. 


IMAGES  AND  NAMES.  109 

on  their  backs  a  wooden  doll  to  represent  it.1  Among  the  Be- 
clmanas,  it  is  a  custom  for  married  women  to  carry  a  doll  with 
them  till  they  have  a  child,  when  the  doll  is  discarded.  There 
is  one  of  these  dolls  in  the  London  Missionary  Museum,  consist- 
ing simply  of  a  long  calabash,  like  a  bottle,  wound  round  with 
strings  of  beads.  The  Basuto  women  use  clay  dolls  in  the  same 
way,  giving  them  the  names  of  tutelary  deities,  and  treating 
them  as  children.2  Among  the  Ostyaks  of  Eastern  Siberia,  there 
is  found  a  still  more  instructive  case,  in  which  we  see  the  tran- 
sition from  the  image  of  the  dead  man  to  the  actual  idol.  When 
a  man  dies,  they  set  up  a  rude  wooden  image  of  him,  which 
receives  offerings  and  has  honours  paid  to  it,  and  the  widow 
embraces  and  caresses  it.  As  a  general  rule,  these  images  are 
buried  at  the  end  of  three  years  or  so,  but  sometimes  the  image  of 
a  shaman3  is  set  up  permanently,  and  remains  as  a  saint  for  ever.4 

The  principal  use  of  images  to  races  in  the  lower  stages  of 
civilization  is  that  to  which  their  name  of  "  the  visible,"  flbahov, 
idol,  has  come  to  be  in  great  measure  restricted  in  modern  lan- 
guage. The  idol  answers  to  the  savage  in  one  province  of 
thought  the  same  purpose  that  its  analogue  the  doll  does  to 
the  child.  It  enables  him  to  give  a  definite  existence  and  a 
personality  to  the  vague  ideas  of  higher  beings,  which  his  mind 
can  hardly  grasp  without  some  material  aid.  How  these  ideas 
came  into  the  minds  of  even  the  lowest  savages,  need  not  be 
discussed  here ;  it  is  sufficient  to  know  that,  so  far  as  we  have 
accurate  information,  they  seem  to  be  present  everywhere  in 
at  least  a  rudimentary  state. 

It  does  not  appear  that  idols  accompany  religious  ideas  down 
to  the  lowest  levels  of  the  human  race,  but  rather  that  they 
belong  to  a  period  of  transition  and  growth.  At  least  this  seems 
the  only  reasonable  explanation  of  the  fact,  that  in  America,  for 
instance,  among  the  lowest  races,  the  Fuegians  and  the  Indians 

1  Bastian,  vol.  ii.  p.  376.  2  Casalis,  p.  251. 

3  A  a/iaman  is  a  native  sorcerer  or  medicine-man.     His  name  is  corrupted  from 
Sanskrit  gramana,  a  Buddhist  ascetic,  a  term  which  is  one  of  the  mar.y  relics  of 
Buddhism  in  Northern  Asia,  having  been  naturalized  into  the  grovelling  fetish-worship 
of  the  Ostyaks  and  Tunguzes.     See  Weber,  'Indische  Skizzen,'  p.  66. 

4  Erman,  '  Reise  urn  die  Erde  ; '  Berlin,  1833-43,  vol.  ii.  p.  677.     'Vojiiges  au 
Kord,'  vol.  viii.  p.  415. 


110  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

of  the  southern  forests,  we  hear  little  or  nothing  of  idols.  Among 
the  so-called  Red  Indians  of  the  North,  we  sometimes  find  idols 
worshipped  and  sacrificed  to,  but  not  always,  while  in  Mexico 
and  Peru  the  whole  apparatus  of  idols,  temples,  priests,  and 
sacrifices  is  found  in  a  most  complex  and  elaborate  form.  It 
does  not  seem,  indeed,  that  the  growth  of  the  use  of  images  may 
be  taken  as  any  direct  measure  of  the  growth  of  religious  ideas, 
which  is  complicated  with  a  multitude  of  other  things.  Image- 
worship  depends  in  considerable  measure  on  the  representation 
of  ideal  beings.  In  so  far  as  this  symbolical  element  is  con- 
cerned, it  seems  that  when  man  has  got  some  way  in  developing 
the  religious  element  in  him,  he  begins  to  catch  at  the  device  of 
setting  a  puppet  or  a  stone  as  the  symbol  and  representative  of 
the  notions  of  a  higher  being  which  are  floating  in  his  mind. 
He  sees'  in  it,  as  a  child  does  in  a  doll,  a  material  form  which 
his  imagination  can  clothe  with  all  the  attributes  of  a  being 
which  he  has  never  seen,  but  of  whose  existence  and  nature  he 
judges  by  what  he  supposes  to  be  its  works.  He  can  lodge  it  in 
the  place  of  honour,  cover  it  up  in  the  most  precious  garments, 
propitiate  it  with  offerings  such  as  would  be  acceptable  to  him- 
self. The  Christian  missionary  goes  among  the  heathen  to  teach 
the  doctrines  of  a  higher  religion,  and  to  substitute  for  the  cruder 
theology  of  the  savage  a  belief  in  a  God  so  far  beyond  human 
comprehension,  that  no  definition  of  the  Deity  is  possible  to  man 
beyond  vague  predications,  as  of  infinite  power,  duration,  know- 
ledge, and  goodness.  It  is  not  perhaps  to  be  wondered  at,  that 
the  missionary  should  see  nothing  in  idol-worship  but  hideous 
folly  and  wickedness,  and  should  look  upon  an  idol  as  a  special 
invention  of  the  devil.  He  is  strengthened,  moreover,  in  such  a 
view  by  the  fact  that  by  the  operation  of  a  certain  law  of  the 
human  mind  (of  which  more  will  be  said  presently),  the  idol,, 
which  once  served  a  definite  and  important  purpose  in  the  educa- 
tion of  the  human  race,  has  come  to  be  confounded  with  the 
idea  of  which  it  was  the  symbol,  and  has  thus  become  the  parent 
of  the  grossest  superstition  and  delusion.  But  the  student  who 
occupies  himself  in  tracing  the  early  stages  of  human  civilization, 
can  see  in  the  rude  image  of  the  savage  an  important  aid  to  early 
religious  development,  while  it  often  happens  that  the  missionary 


IMAGES   AND  NAMES.  Ill 

is  as  unable  to  appreciate  the  use  and  value  of  an  idol,  as  the 
grown-up  man  is  to  realize  the  use  of  a  doll  to  a  child. 

Man  being  the  highest  living  creature  that  can  be  seen  and 
imitated,  it  is  natural  that  idols  should  mostly  be  imitations, 
more  or  less  rude,  of  the  human  form.  To  show  that  the  beings 
they  represent  are  greater  and  more  powerful  than  man,  they 
are  often  huge  in  size,  and  sometimes,  by  a  very  natural  expe- 
dient, several  heads  and  pairs  of  arms  and  legs  show  that  they 
have  more  wisdom,  strength,  and  swiftness  than  man.  The  sun 
and  moon,  which  in  the  physical  system  of  the  savage  are 
o  '-en  held  to  be  living  creatures  of  monstrous  power,  are  repre- 
sented by  images.  The  lower  animals,  too,  are  often  raised  to 
the  honour  of  personating  supernatural  powers,  a  practice  which 
need  not  surprise  us,  when  we  consider  that  the  savage  does  not 
set  the  lower  animals  at  so  great  a  depth  below  him  as  the 
civilized  man  does,  but  allows  them  the  possession  of  language, 
and  after  his  fashion,  of  souls,  while  we  perhaps  err  in  the  oppo- 
site direction,  by  stretching  the  great  gap  which  separates  the 
lowest  man  from  the  highest  animal,  into  an  impassable  gulf. 
Moreover,  as  animals  have  some  powers  which  man  only  possesses 
in  a  less  degree,  or  not  at  all,  these  powers  may  be  attributed  to 
a  deity  by  personating  him  under  the  forms  of  the  animals  which 
possess  them,  or  by  giving  to  an  image  of  human  form  parts  of 
such  animals  ;  thus  the  feet  of  a  stag,  the  head  of  a  lion,  or  the 
wings  of  a  bird,  may  serve  to  express  the  swiftness  or  ferocity  of 
a  god,  or  to  show  that  he  can  fly  into  the  upper  regions  of  the 
air,  or,  like  the  goat's  feet  of  Pan,  they  may  be  mere  indications 
of  his  character  and  functions. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  the  figure  of  a  deity  should  have  the 
characteristics  of  the  race  who  worship  it ;  the  figure  of  another 
race  may  seem  fitter  for  the  purpose.  Mr.  Catlin,  for  instance, 
brought  over  with  him  a  tent  from  the  Crow  Indians,  which  he 
describes  as  having  the  Great  or  Good  Spirit  painted  on  one  side 
of  it,  and  the  Bad  Spirit  on  the  other.  His  drawing,  unfortu- 
nately, only  shows  clearly  one  figure,  in  the  unmistakable  uniform 
of  a  white  soldier  with  a  musket  in  the  one  hand  and  a  pipe  in 
the  other,1  and  this  may  very  likely  be  the  figure  of  the  Good 

1  Catlin,  vol.  i.  p.  44. 


112  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

Spirit,  for  the  pipe  is  a  known  symbol  of  peac3.;  But  the  white 
man  stands  also  to  the  savage  painter  for  the  portrait  of  the  Evil 
Demon,  especially  in  Africa,  where  we  find  the  natives  of 
Mozambique  drawing  their  devil  in  the  likeness  of  a  white  man,3 
while  Romer,  speaking  of  the  people  of  the  Guinea  coast,  says 
that  they  say  the  devil  is  white,  and  paint  him  with  their 
whitest  colours.  The  pictures  of  him  are  lent  on  hire  for  a 
week  or  so  by  the  old  woman  who  makes  them,  to  people  whom 
the  devil  visits  at  night.  When  he  sees  his  image,  he  is  so 
terrified  that  he  never  comes  back.3  This  impersonation  need 
not,  however,  be  intended  by  any  means  as  an  insult  to  the 
white  man.  As  Captain  Burton  says  of  his  African  name  of 
Muzungu  Mbaya,  "  the  wicked  white  man,"  it  would  have  been 
but  a  sorry  compliment  to  have  called  him  a  good  white  man. 
Much  of  the  reverence  of  the  savage  is  born  rather  of  fear  than 
of  love,  and  the  white  colonist  has  seldom  failed  to  make  out 
that  title  to  the  respect  of  the  savage,  which  lies  in  the  power, 
not  unaccompanied  by  the  will,  to  hurt  him. 

The  rudeness  and  shapelessness  of  some  of  the  blocks  and 
stones  which  serve  as  idols  among  many  tribes,  and  those  not 
always  the  lowest,  is  often  surprising.  There  seems  to  be 
mostly,  though  not  always,  a  limit  to  the  shapelessness  of  an 
idol  which  is  to  represent  the  human  form  ;  this  is  the  same 
which  a  child  would  unconsciously  apply,  namely,  that  its 
length,  breadth,  and  thickness  must  bear  a  proportion  not  too 
far  different  from  the  proportions  of  the  human  body.  A  wooden 
brick  or  a  cotton-reel,  set  up  or  lying  down,  will  serve  well 
enough  for  a  child  to  represent  a  man  or  woman  standing  or 
lying,  but  a  cube  or  a  ball  would  not  answer  the  purpose  so  well, 
and  if  put  for  a  man,  could  hardly  be  supposed  even  by  the 
imagination  of  a  child  to  represent  more  than  position  and 
movement,  or  relative  size  when  compared  with  larger  or  smaller 
objects.  Much  the  same  test  is  applied  by  the  uncivilized  man 

1  SirQ.  Simpson,  '  Narrative  of  a  Journey  round  the  World' ;  London,  1847,  vol.  i. 
p.  75. 

2  Pnrchas,  vol.  v.  p.  768.     See  Livingstone,  '  Missionary  Travels,  etc.,  in  South 
Africa  ;'  London,  18o7,  p.  465.     See  also  Marco  Polo,  in  Finkerton,  vol.  vii.  p.  163. 

1  L.  F.  Romer,  'Nachr.  von  derKu-ite  Guinea's';  Copenhagen,  Leipzig,  1769,  p.  43. 
See  Waitz,  voL  ii.  p.  503. 


IMAGES  AND   NAMES.  113 

in  a  particular  class  of  myths  or  legends,  which  come  to  be  made 
oil  this  wise.  We  all  have  more  or  less  of  the  power  of  seeing 
forms  of  men  and  animals  in  inanimate  objects,  which  sometimes 
have  in  fact  a  considerable  likeness  of  outline  to  what  they 
suggest,  but  which,  in  some  instances,  have  scarcely  any  other 
resemblance  to  the  things  into  which  fancy  shapes  them  than 
a  rough  similarity  in  the  proportions  of  their  longer  and  shorter 
diameters.  Myths  which  have  been  applied  to  such  fancied 
resemblances,  or  have  grown  up  out  of  them,  may  be  collected 
from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  from  races  high  and  low  in  the 
scale  of  culture. 

Among  the  Biccaras,  there  was  once  a  young  Indian  who  was 
in  love  with  a  girl,  but  her  parents  refused  their  consent  to  the 
marriage,  so  the  youth  went  out  into  the  prairie,  lamenting  his 
fate,  and  the  girl  wandered  out  to  the  same  place,  and  the  faith- 
ful dog  followed  his  master.  There  they  wandered  with  nothing 
to  live  on  but  the  wild  grapes,  and  at  last  they  were  turned  into 
stone,  first  their  feet,  and  then  gradually  the  upper  part  of  their 
bodies,  till  at  last  nothing  was  left  unchanged  but  a  bunch  of 
grapes,  which  the  girl  holds  in  her  hand  to  this  day.  And  all 
this  story  has  grown  out  of  the  fancied  likeness  of  three  stones 
to  two  human  figures  and  a  dog.  Theje  are  many  grapes  grow- 
ing near,  and  the  Biccaras  venerate  these  figures,  leaving  little 
offerings  for  them  when  they  pass  by.1  So  the  Seneca  Indians 
affirm  that  the  rounded  head-like  pebbles  on  the  shore  of  Lake 
Canandaigua  are  the  petrified  skulls  of  the  devoured  tribe  dis- 
gorged by  the  great  snake  in  its  death-agony.2 

There  was  a  Maori  warrior  named  Hau,  and  his  wife  Wairaka 
deserted  him.  So  he  followed  her,  going  from  one  river  to  the 
next,  and  at  last  he  came  to  one  where  he  looked  out  slyly  from 
the  corner  of  his  eye  to  see  if  he  could  discover  her.  He 
breathed  hard  when  he  reached  the  place  where  Wairaka  was 
sitting  with  her  paramour.  He  said  to  her,  "  Wairaka,  I  am 
thirsty,  fetch  me  some  water."  She  got  up  and  walked  down  to 
the  sea  with  a  calabash  in  each  hand.  He  made  her  go  on  until 
the  waves  flowed  over  her  shoulders,  when  he  repeated  a  charm, 

1  Lewis  and  Clarke,  Expedition;  Phikdelphia,  1SH,  p.  107. 
*  Schooleraft,  part  iii.  p.  323. 


114-  IMAGES  AND   NAMES. 

which  converted  her  into  a  rock  that  still  bears  her  name.  Then 
he  went  joyfully  on  his  way.1 

So  the  figure  of  the  weeping  Niobe  turned  into  a  rock,  might 
be  seen  on  Mount  Sipylus.2  The  groups  of  upright  stones,  set 
up  by  old  inhabitants  in  Africa  and  India,  are  now  giants,  men, 
flocks  and  herds  changed  into  stone  ;  the  avenues  of  monoliths 
at  Karnak  are  petrified  battalions  ;  the  stone-circles  on  English 
downs  have  suggested  other  fanciful  legends,  as  where  for  in- 
stance the  story  has  shaped  itself  that  such  a  ring  was  a  party 
of  girls  who  were  turned  into  stone  for  dancing  carols  on  a 
Sunday.3  There  is  a  tradition,  probably  still  current  in  Pales- 
tine, of  a  city  between  Petra  and  Hebron,  whose  inhabitants  were 
turned  into  stone  for  their  wickedness.  Seetzen,  the  traveller, 
visited  the  spot  where  the  remains  of  the  petrified  inhabitants 
of  the  wicked  city  are  still  to  be  seen,  and,  just  as  in  the 
American  tale,  he  found  their  heads  a  number  of  stony  concre- 
tions, lying  scattered  on  the  ground.4  The  imagination  which 
could  work  on  these  rude  objects  could  naturally  discover  in 
stone  statues  the  result  of  such  a  transformation.  Statues  sculp- 
tured by  a  higher  Peruvian  race  at  Tiahuanaco,  seemed  to 
the  ruder  Indians  petrified  men,5  and  the  clumsy  stone  busts 
on  Asiatic  steppes  are,  to  the  rude  Turanians  who  worship 
them,  as  it  were  fossilized  deities.6  Especially  the  Jewish  and 
Moslem  iconoclastic  mind  thinks  ancient  statues  men  trans- 
formed by  enchantment  or  judgment,  and  here  we  have  the 
source  of  the  Arabian  Nights'  tale  of  the  infidel  city, 
found  with  its  inhabitants  turned  to  lifelike  counterfeits  in 
stone.7 

The  myths  of  footprints  stamped  into  the  rock  by  gods  or 
mighty  men  are  hot  the  least  curious  of  this  class,  not  only  from 

1  W.  B.  Baker,  On  Maori  Popular  Poetry,  Trans.  Eth.  Soc. ;  London,  1861,  p.  49. 

2  Pausanias,  i.  21. 

1  See  Forbes-Leslie,  'Early  Races  of  Scotland  ;'  Edinburgh,  13^6,  vol.  i.  p.  191. 
William  of  Malmesbury,  ii.  174  ;  see  Liebrecht  in  Heidelberger  Jahrbiicher,  1SOS,  p 
328. 

4  Kenrick,  '  Essay  on  Primaeval  History ;'  London,  1846,  p.  41. 

*  Cieza  de  Leon,  Travel^  (tr.  and  ed.  by  Markham),  Hakluyt  Soc.  1864,  p.  378. 

*  Latham,  '  Descriptive  Ethnology  ; '  vol.  i.  p.  360. 

7  Lane,  'Thousand  and  One  Nights,'  vol.  iii.  p.  141.  M.  A.  Walker,  'Macedonia, 
London,  1864,  p.  48. 


IMAGES   AXD   NAMES.  115 

the  power  of  imagination  required  to  see  footprints  in  mere 
round  or  long  cavities,  but  also  from  the  unanimity  with  which 
Egyptians,  Greeks,  Brahmans,  Buddhists,  Christians,  and 
Moslems  have  adopted  them  as  relies,  each  from  their  own  point 
of  view.  The  typical  case  is  the  sacred  footprint  of  Ceylon, 
which  is  a  cavity  in  the  rock,  5  feet  long  by  2£  feet  wide,  at  the 
top  of  Adam's  Peak,  made  into  something  like  a  huge  footstep 
by  mortar  divisions  for  the  toes.  Brahmans,  Buddhists,  and 
Moslems  still  climb  the  mountain  to  do  reverence  to  it ;  but  to 
the  Brahman  it  is  the  footstep  of  Siva,  to  the  Buddhist  of  the 
great  founder  of  his  religion,  Gautama  Buddha,  and  to  the 
Moslem  it  is  the  spot  where  Adam  stood  when  he  was  driven 
from  Paradise  ;  while  the  Gnostics  have  held  it  to  be  the  foot- 
print of  leu,  and  Christians  have  been  divided  between  the 
conflicting  claims  of  St.  Thomas  and  the  Eunuch  of  Candace, 
Queen  of  Ethiopia.1  The  followers  of  these  different  faiths  have 
found  holy  footprints  in  many  countries  of  the  Old  World,  and 
the  Christians  have  carried  the  idea  into  various  parts  of  Europe, 
where  saints  have  left  their  footmarks ;  while,  even  in  America, 
St.  Thomas  left  his  footsteps  on  the  shores  of  Bahia,  as  a  record 
of  his  mythic  journey.2 

For  all  we  know,  the  whole  mass  of  the  Old  "World  footprint- 
myths  may  have  had  but  a  single  origin,  and  have  travelled  from 
one  people  to  another.  The  story  is  found,  too,  in  the  Pacific 
Islands,  for  in  Samoa  two  hollow  places,  near  six  feet  long,  in  a 
rock,  are  shown  as  the  footprints  of  Tiitii,  where  he  stood  when 
he  pushed  the  heavens  up  from  the  earth.3  But  there  are  reasons 
which  may  make  us  hesitate  to  consider  the  whole  Polynesian 
mythology  as  independent  of  Asiatic  influence.  In  North 
America,  at  the  edge  of  the  Great  Pipestone  Quarry,  where  the 
Great  Spirit  stood  when  the  blood  of  the  buffalos  he  was  devour- 
ing ran  down  upon  the  stone  and  turned  it  red,  there  his  footsteps 
are  to  be  seen  deeply  marked  in  the  rock,  in  the  form  of  the 
track  of  a  great  bird  ;  4  while  Mexican  eyes  could  discern  in  the 

1  Tennent,   '  Ceylon  ; '  vol.  ii.  p.   132.     Scherzer,  Voy.  of  the  Novara,   E.  Tr.  ; 
London,  1861,  etc.?  vol.  i.  p.  413. 

2  Southey,  'History  of  Brazil  ;'  London,  1822,  vol.  i.;  Sup.  p.  xx. 

8  Rev.  G-.  Turner,  '  Nineteen  Years  in  Polynesia  ; '  London,  1801,  p.  245. 

4  Catlin,  vol.  ii.  p.  165,  etc. 

I  2 


110  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

solid  rock  at  Tlanepa^ttla  the  mark  of  hand  and  foot  left  by  the 
mighty  Quetzalcoatl.1 

There  are  three  kinds  of  prints  in  the  rock  which  may  have 
served  as  a  foundation  for  such  tales  as  these.  In  many  parts 
of  the  world  there  are  fossil  footprints  of  birds  and  beasts,  many 
of  huge  size.  The  North  American  Indians  also,  whose  attention 
is  specially  alive  to  the  footprints  of  men  and  animals,  very 
often  carve  them  on  rocks,  sometimes  with  figures  of  the  animals 
to  which  they  belong.  These  footprints  are  sometimes  so 
naturally  done  as  to  be  mistaken  for  real  ones.  The  rock  of 
which  Andersson  heard  hi  South  Africa,  "  in  which  the  tracks  of 
all  the  different  animals  indigenous  to  the  country  are  distinctly 
visible,"  2  is  probably  such  a  sculptured  rock.  Thirdly,  there 
are  such  mere  shapeless  holes  as  those  to  which  most  or  all  of 
the  Old  World  myths  seem  to  be  attached.  Now  the  difficulty 
in  working  out  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  these  myths  is  this, 
that  if  the  prints  are  real  fossil  ones,  or  good  sculptures,  stories 
of  the  beings  that  made  them  might  grow  up  independently  any- 
where ;  but  one  can  hardly  fancy  men  in  many  different  places 
coming  separately  upon  the  quaint  notion  of  mere  hollows,  six 
feet  long,  being  monstrous  footprints,  unless  the  notion  of  mon- 
strous footprints  being  found  elsewhere  were  already  current. 
At  the  foot  of  the  page  are  references  to  some  passages  relating 
to  the  subject.3 

It  has  just  been  remarked  that  there  is  a  certain  process  of 
the  human  mind  through  which,  among  men  at  a  low  level  of 
education,  the  use  of  images  leads  to  gross  superstition  and 
delusion.  No  one  will  deny  that  there  is  an  evident  connexion 
between  an  object,  and  an  image  or  picture  of  it ;  but  we 
civilized  men  know  well  that  this  connexion  is  only  subjective, 
that  is,  in  the  mind  of  the  observer,  while  there  is  no  objcctire 
connexion  between  them.  By  an  objective  connexion,  I  mean 

1  J.  Q.  Miiller,  '  Amerikanische  Urreligionen  ; '  Basle,  1855,  p.  578,  see  272. 

1  C.  J.  Andersson,  Lake  Ngami,  etc.,  p.  327. 

1  Lyell,  Second  Visit  to  U.  S.;  London,  1850,  vol.  ii.  p.  313.  C.  Hamilton  Smith, 
Nat.  Hist,  of  Human  Species ;  Edinburgh,  1848,  p.  35.  Schoolcraft,  part  iii.  \>.  74. 
Burton,  '  Central  Africa  ; '  voL  i.  p.  288.  Squier  and  Davis,  Anct.  Mon.  of  Mssi. 
Valley,  ToL  L  of  Smithsonian  Contr.;  Washington,  1848,  p.  293.  Bawlinson, 
Herodotus ;  book  ii.  91.  IT.  82. 


IMAGES  AND   NAMES.  117 

such  a  connexion  as  there  is  between  the  bucket  in  the  well  aiul 
the  hand  that  draws  it  up, — when  the  hand  stops,  the  bucket 
stops  too ;  or  between  a  man  and  his  shadow, — when  the  man 
moves,  the  shadow  moves  too ;  or  between  an  electro-magne* 
and  the  iron  filings  near  jt, — when  the  current  passes  through 
the  coil,  a  change  takes  place  in  the  condition  of  the  iron  filings. 
These  are,  of  course,  crude  examples  ;  but  if  more  nicety  is 
necessary,  it  might  be  said  that  the  connexion  is  in  some  degree 
what  a  mathematician  expresses  in  saying  that  y  is  a  function 
of  a-,  when,  if  x  changes,  y  changes  too.  The  connexion  between 
a  man  and  his  portrait  is  not  objective,  for  what  is  done  to  the 
man  has  no  effect  upon  the  portrait,  and  vice  versa. 

To  an  educated  European  nowadays  this  sounds  like  a  mere 
truism,  so  self-evident  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  make  a  formal 
statement  of  it ;  but  it  may  nevertheless  be  shown  that  this  is 
one  of  the  cases  in  which  the  accumulated  experience  and  the 
long  course  of  education  of  the  civilized  races  have  brought 
them  not  only  to  reverse  the  opinion  of  the  savage,  but  com- 
monly to  think  that  their  own  views  are  the  only  ones  that  could 
naturally  arise  in  the  mind  of  any  rational  human  being.  It 
needs  no  very  large  acquaintance  with  the  life  and  ways  of 
thought  of  the  savage,  to  prove  that  there  is  to  be  found  all  over 
the  world,  especially  among  races  at  a  low  mental  level,  a  view 
as  to  this  matter  which  is  very  different  from  that  which  a  more 
advanced  education  has  impressed  upon  us.  Man,  in  a  low 
stage  of  culture,  very  commonly  believes  that  between  the  object 
and  the  image  of  it  there  is  a  real  connexion,  which  does  not 
arise  from  a  mere  subjective  process  in  the  mind  of  the  observer, 
and  that  it  is  accordingly  possible  to  communicate  an  impression 
to  the  original  through  the  copy.  We  may  follow  this  erroneous 
belief  up  into  periods  of  high  civilization,  its  traces  becoming 
fainter  as  education  advances,  and  not  only  is  this  confusion  of 
subjective  and  objective  relations  connected  with  many  of  the 
delusions  of  idolatry,  but  even  so  seemingly  obscure  a  subject  as 
magic  and  sorcery  may  be  brought  in  great  measure  into  clear 
daylight,  by  looking  at  it  as  evolved  from  this  process  of  the 
mind. 

It  is  related  by  an  early  observer  of  the  natives  of  Australia, 


118  IMAGES  AND   NAMES. 

that  in  one  of  their  imitative  dances  they  made  use  of  a  grass- 
figure  of  a  kangaroo,  and  the  ceremony  was  held  to  give  them 
power  over  the  real  kangaroos  in  the  bush.1  In  North  America, 
when  an  Algonquin  wizard  wishes  to  kill  a  particular  animal, 
he  makes  a  grass  or  clpth  image  of  it,  and  hangs  it  up  in  his 
wigwam.  Then  he  repeats  several  times  the  incantation,  "  See 
how  I  shoot,"  and  lets  fly  an  arrow  at  the  image.  If  he  drives 
it  in,  it  is  a  sign  that  the  animal  will  be  killed  next  day.  Again, 
while  an  arrow  touched  by  the  magical  medawin,  and  afterwards 
fired  into  the  track  of  an  animal,  is  believed  to  arrest  his  course, 
or  otherwise  affect  him,  till  the  hunter  can  come  up,  a  similar 
virtue  is  believed  to  be  exerted,  if  but  the  figure  of  the  animal 
sought  be  drawn  on  wood  or  bark,  and  afterwards  submitted  to 
the  influences  of  the  magic  medicine  and  incantation.  In  their 
picture-writings,  a  man  or  beast  is  shown  to  be  under  magic 

influence  by  drawing  a  line  from  the 
mouth  to  the  heart,  as  in  the  annexed 
figure,  which  represents  a  wolf  under 
the  charm  of  the  magician,  and  corre- 
sponds to  the  incantation  sung  by 
the  medicine-rnan,  "  Run,  wolf,  your 
body's  mine."5  Writing  in  the  last 
Fi  14  century,  Charlevoix  remarks  that  the 

Illinois  and  some  other  tribes  make 
little  marmouzets  or  puppets  to  represent  those  whose  lives 
they  wish  to  shorten,  and  pierce  these  images  to  the  heart.3 

We  find  thus  among  the  Indians  of  North  America  one  of 
the  commonest  arts  of  magic  practised  in  Europe  in  ancient 
and  medieval  tunes.  The  art  of  making  an  image  and  melting 
it  away,  drying  it  up,  shooting  at  it,  sticking  pins  or  thorns 
into  it,  that  some  like  injury  may  befall  the  person  it  is  to 
represent,  is  too  well  known  to  need  detailed  description  here,4 
and  it  is  still  to  be  found  existing  in  various  parts  of  the  world. 

1  Collins,  'New  South  Wales;'  London,  1793,  vol.  i.  p.  569. 
*  Schoolcraft,  parti,  pp.  372,  380-382,  part  ii.  p.  180.     See  'Narrative  of  John 
Tanner,   part  ii. 

3  Charlevoix,  voL  vi.  p.  88.     See  Waitz,  'Anthropologie,'  vol.  iii.  p.  214. 

4  Jacob  Grimm,  'Deutsche  Mythologie,'  Gottingen,  3rd  Edit.;  1854,  p.  1045,  etc. 
Brand,  'Popular  Antiquities,'  Eohns  Series ;  London,  1555,  vol.  iii.  pp.  10,  52,  141. 


IMAGES  AND   NAMES.  119 

Thus  the  Peruvian  sorcerers  are  said  still  to  make  rag  dolls  and 
stick  cactus-thorns  into  them,  and  to  hide  them  in  secret  holes 
in  houses,  or  in  the  wool  of  beds  or  cushions,  thereby  to  cripple 
people,  or  turn  them  sick  or  mad.1  In  Borneo  the  familiar 
European  practice  still  exists,  of  making  a  wax  figure  of  th 
enemy  to  be  bewitched,  whose  body  is  to  waste  away  as  the 
image  is  gradually  melted,2  as  in  the  story  of  Margery  Jordane's 
waxen  image  of  Henry  VI.  The  old  Roman  law  punished  by 
the  extreme  penalty  the  slaying  of  an  absent  person  by  means  of 
a  wax  figure.  The  Hindoo  arts  are  thus  described  by  the  Abbe 
Dubois  : — "  They  knead  earth  taken  from  the  sixty-four  most 
unclean  places,  with  hair,  clippings  of  hair,  bits  of  leather,  etc., 
and  with  this  they  make  little  figures,  on  the  breasts  of  which 
they  write  the  name  of  the  enemy ;  over  these  they  pronounce 
magical  words  and  mantrams,  and  consecrate  them  by  sacrifices. 
No  sooner  is  this  done,  than  the  graJtas,  or  planets,  seize  the 
hated  person,  and  inflict  on  him  a  thousand  ills.  They  some- 
times pierce  these  figures  right  through  with  an  awl,  or  cripple 
them  in  different  ways,  with  the  intention  of  killing  or  crippling 
in  reality  the  object  of  their  vengeance."3  Again,  the  Karens 
of  Burmah  model  an  image  of  a  person  from  the  earth  of  his 
footprints,  and  stick  it  over  with  cotton  seeds,  intending  thereby 
to  strike  the  person  represented  with  dumbness.4  Here  we 
have  the  making  of  the  figure  combined  with  the  ancient 
practice  in  Germany  known  as  the  "  earth-cutting"  (erdsclmitt), 
cutting  out  the  earth  or  turf  where  the  man  who  is  to  be 

O 

destroyed  has  stood,  and  hanging  it  in  the  chimney,  that  he 
may  perish  as  his  footprint  dries  and  shrivels.5 

In  these  cases  the  object  in  view  is  to  hurt  the  original 
through  the  image,  but  it  is  also  possible  to  make  an  image, 
transfer  to  it  the  evil  spirit  of  the  disease  which  has  attacked 
the  person  it  is  to  represent,  and  then  send  it  out  like  a  scape- 
goat into  the  wilderness.  They  conjure  devils  into  puppets  in 

1  Rivero  and  Tschudi,  p.  181.  2  St.  John,  vol  ii.  p.  260. 

8  Dubois,  'Miturs,  etc.,  des  Peuples  de  1'Inde  ; '  Paris,  1825,  vol.  ii.  p.  63. 

4  Mrs.  Mason,  '  Civilizing  Mountain  Men  ;  '  London,  1862,  p.  121.     See  Mason  in 
Journ.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,  part  ii.  1865,  p.  224. 

5  Grimm,  D.  M.,  p.  1047.  Wuttke,  'Ueutsche  Volksaberglaube ;'  Hamburg,  1860, 
pp.  102,  120. 


120  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

West  Africa  ;l  in  Siam  the  doctor  makes  an  image  of  clay, 
sends  his  patient's  disease  into  it,  and  then  takes  it  away  to  the 
woods  and  buries  it;2  while  the  Tunguz  cures  his  leg  or  his 
heart  hy  wearing  a  carved  model  of  the  part  affected  about  him.3 
The  transfer  of  life  or  the  qualities  of  a  living  being  to  an 
image  may  be  made  by  giving  it  a  name,  or  by  the  performance 
of  a  ceremony  over  it.  Thus,  at  the  festival  of  the  Durga  Puja, 
the  officiating  Brahman  touches  the  cheeks,  eyes,  breast,  and 
forehead  of  each  of  the  images  that  have  been  prepared,  and 
says,  "  Let  the  soul  of  Durga  long  continue  in  happiness  in  this 
image."  Till  life  is  thus  given  to  them,  they  may  not  be 
worshipped.4  But  the  mere  making  of  the  image  of  a  living 
creature  is  very  commonly  sufficient  to  set  up  at  once  its  con- 
nexion with  life,  among  races  who  have  not  thoroughly  passed 
out  of  the  state  of  mind  to  which  these  practices  belong. 
Looking  at  the  matter  from  a  very  different  point  of  view,  and 
yet  with  the  same  feeling  of  a  necessary  connexion  between  life 
and  the  image  of  the  living  creature,  the  Moslem  holds  that  he 
who  makes  an  image  in  this  world  will  have  it  set  before  him 
on  the  day  of  judgment,  and  will  be  called  upon  to  give  it  life, 
but  he  will  fail  to  finish  the  work  he  has  thus  left  half  done, 
and  will  be  sent  to  expiate  his  offence  in  hell. 

•  With  such  illustrations  to  show  how  widely  spread  and 
deeply  rooted  is  the  belief  that  there  is  a  real  connexion  be- 
tween a  being  and  its  image,  we  can  see  how  almost  inevitable 
it  is,  that  man  at  a  low  stage  of  education  should  come  to 
confound  the  image  with  that  which  it  was  made  to  represent. 
The  strong  craving  of  the  human  mind  for  a  material  support 
to  the  religious  sentiment  has  produced  idols  and  fetishes  over 
most  parts  of  the  world,  and  at  most  periods  in  its  history  ;  and 
while  the  more  intelligent,  even  among  many  low  tribes,  have 
often  clearly  enough  taken  the  images  as  mere  symbols  of 
superhuman  beings,  the  vulgar  have  commonly  believed  that 
the  idols  themselves  had  life  and  supernatural  powers.  Mission- 

1  Hutchinson.  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.;  London,  1861,  p.  336. 

*  Bowring,  'Siam  ;'  London,  1857,  vol.  i.  p.  139. 

'  Ravenstein,  '  The  Russians  on  the  Amur  ; '  London,  1861,  p.  351. 

4  Coleman,  'The  Mythology  of  the  Hindus  ; '  London,  1832,  p.  83. 


IMAGES  AND  NAMES.  121 

aries  have  remarked  this  difference  in  the  views  of  more  and 
less  intelligent  members  of  the  same  tribe  ;  and  it  is  emphati- 
cally true  of  a  large  part  of  Christendom,  that  the  images  and 
pictures,  which,  to  the  more  instructed,  serve  merely  as  a  help 
to  realise  religious  ideas  and  to  suggest  devotional  thoughts, 
are  looked  upon  by  the  uneducated  and  superstitious  crowd  as 
beings  endowed  not  only  with  a  sort  of  life,  but  with  miraculous 
influences.1 

The  line  between  the  cases  in  which  the  connexion  between 
object  and  figure  is  supposed  to  be  real,  and  those  in  which  it  is 
known  to  be  imaginary,  is  often  very  difficult  to  draw.  Thus 
idols  and  figures  of  saints  are  beaten  and  abused  for  not  granting 
the  prayers  of  their  worshippers,  which  may  be  a  mere  expression 
of  spite  towards  their  originals,  but  then  two  rival  gods  may  be 
knocked  together  when  their  oracles  disagree,  that  the  one  which 
breaks  first  may  be  discarded,  and  here  a  material  connexion 
must  certainly  be  supposed  to  exist.  To  the  most  difficult  class 
belong  the  symbolic  sacrifices  of  models  of  men  and  animals  in 
Italy  and  Greece,  and  the  economical  paper-offerings  of  Eastern 
Asia.  The  Chinese  perform  the  rite  of  burning  money  and 
clothes  for  the  use  of  the  dead  ;  but  the .  real  things  are  too 
valuable  to  be  wasted  by  a  thrifty  people,  so  paper  figures  do 
duty  for  them.  Thus  they  set  burning  junks  adrift  as  sacrifices 
to  get  a  favourable  wind,  but  they  are  only  paper  ones.  Perhaps 
the  neatest  illustration  of  this  kind  of  offerings,  and  of  the  state 
of  mind  in  which  the  offerer  makes  them,  is  to  be  found  in  Hue 
and  Gabet's  story  of  the  Tibetan  lamas,  who  sent  horses  flying 
from  the  mountain-top  in  a  gale  of  wind,  for  the  relief  of  worn- 
out  pilgrims  who  could  get  no  further  on  their  way.  The  horses 
were  bits  of  paper,  with  a  horse  printed  on  each,  saddled,  bridled, 
and  galloping  at  full  speed.2 

Hanging  and  burning  in  effigy  is  a  proceeding  which,  in 
civilized  countries  at  any  rate,  at  last  comes  fairly  out  into  pure 
symbolism.  The  idea  that  the  burning  of  the  straw  and  rag 

1  For  discussion  of  image-worship  or  idolatry,  where  the  image  is  considered  to  bo 
actually  animated  by  a  human  soul  or  divine  spirit  which  has  taken  up  its  abode  in  it 
as  a  body,  see  Tylor,  'Primitive  Culture,'  chap.  xiv.      [Note  to  3rd  Edition.] 

2  Hue  and  Gabet,  '  Voy.  dans  la  Tartarie,  etc.;'  Paris,  1850,  vol.  ii.  p.  136. 


122  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

body  should  act  upon  the  body  of  the  original,  perhaps  hardly 
comes  into  the  mind  of  any  one  who  assists  at  such  a  perform- 
ance. But  it  is  not  easy  to  determine  how  far  this  is  the  case 
with  the  New  Zealanders,  whose  minds  are  full  of  confusion 
between  object  and  image,  as  we  may  see  by  their  witchcraft, 
and  who  also  hold  strong  views  about  their  effigies,  and  fero- 
ciously revenge  an  insult  to  them.  One  very  curious  practice 
has  come  out  of  their  train  of  thought  about  this  matter.  They 
were  very  fond  of  wearing  round  their  necks  little  hideous  figures 
of  green  jade,  with  their  heads  very  much  on  one  side,  which 
are  called  tiki,  and  are  often  to  be  seen  in  museums.  It  seems 
likely  that  they  are  merely  images  of  Tiki,  creator  of  man  and 
god  of  the  dead.  They  are  carried  as  memorials  of  dead  friends, 
and  are  sometimes  taken  off  and  wept  and  sung  over  by  a  circle 
of  natives  ;  but  a  tiki  commonly  belongs,  not  to  the  memory  of 
a  single  individual,  but  of  a  succession  of  deceased  persons  who 
have  worn  it  in  their  tune,  so  that  it  cannot  be  considered  as 
having  in  it  much  of  the  nature  of  a  portrait.1  Some  New 
Zealanders,  however,  who  were  lately  in  London,  were  asked 
why  these  tikis  usually,  if  not  always,  have  but  three  fingers  on 
their  hands,  and  they  replied  that  if  an  image  is  made  of  a  man, 
and  any  one  should  insult  it,  the  affront  would  have  to  be  re- 
venged, and  to  avoid  such  a  contingency  the  tikis  were  made 
with  only  three  fingers,  so  that,  not  being  any  one's  image,  no 
one  was  bound  to  notice  what  happened  to  them. 

In  medicine,  the  notion  of  the  real  connexion  between  object 
and  image  has  manifested  itself  widely  in  both  ancient  and 
modern  times.  Pliny  speaks  of  the  folly  of  the  magicians  in 
using  the  catanance  (KararayKq,  compulsion)  for  love-potions, 
because  it  shrinks  in  drying  into  the  shape  of  the  claws  of  a 
dead  kite  (and  so,  of  course,  holds  the  patient  fast) ;  but  it  does 
not  strike  him  that  the  virtues  of  the  lithospermum  or  "  stone- 
seed"  in  curing  calculus  were  no  doubt  deduced  in  just  the 
same  way.2  In  more  modern  times,  such  notions  as  these  were 
elaborated  into  the  old  medical  theory  known  as  the  "  Doctrine 

1  Hale,  in  U.  S.  Exploring  Exp.;  Philadelphia,  vol.  vi.,  1846,  p.  23.  W.  Tate. 
'Account  of  New  Zealand  ;'  London,  1835,  p.  151;  K,.  Taylor,  '  .New  Zealand  and  its 
Inhabitants, '  2nd  ed.,  London,  Io7o,  cLap.  vi.  3  Plin.  xxvii.  35,  1\. 


IMAGES  AND  NAMES.  123 

of  Signatures,"  which  supposed  that  plants  and  minerals  indi- 
cated by  their  external  characters  the  diseases  for  which  nature 
had  intended  them  as  remedies.  Thus  the  Euphrasia  or  eye- 
bright  was,  and  is,  supposed  to  be  good  for  the  eyes,  on  the 
strength  of  a  black  pupil-like  spot  in  its  corolla,  the  yellow 
turmeric  was  thought  good  for  jaundice,  and  the  blood-stone  is 
probably  used  to  this  day  for  stopping  blood.1  By  virtue  of  a 
similar  association  of  ideas,  the  ginseng,  which  is  still  largely 
used  in  China,  was  also  employed  by  the  Indians  of  North 
America,  and  in  both  countries  its  virtues  were  deduced  from 
the  shape  of  the  root,  which  is  supposed  to  resemble  the  human 
body.  Its  Iroquois  name,  abesoutchenza,  means  "  a  child," 
while  in  China  it  is  called  jin-seng,  that  is  to  say,  "  resemblance 
of  man."  2 

Such  cases  as  these  bring  clearly  into  view  the  belief  in  a  real 
and  material  connexion  existing  between  an  object  and  its  image. 
By  virtue  of  their  resemblance,  the  two  are  associated  in  thought, 
and  being  thus  brought  into  connexion  in  the  mind,  it  conies  to 
be  believed  that  they  are  also  in  connexion  in  the  outside  world. 
Now  the  association  of  an  object  with  its  name  is  made  in  a  very 
different  way,  but  it  nevertheless  produces  a  series  of  very  simi- 
lar results.  Except  in  imitative  words,  the  objective  resem- 
blance between  thing  and  word,  if  it  ever  existed,  is  not  dis- 
cernible now.  A  word  cannot  be  compared  to  an  image  or  a 
picture,  which,  as  everybody  can  see,  is  like  what  it  stands  for  ; 
but  it  is  enough  that  idea  and  word  come  together  by  habit  in  the 
mind,  to  make  men  think  that  there  is  some  real  bond  of  con- 
nexion between  the  thing,  and  the  name  which  belongs  to  it 
in  their  mother-tongue.  Professor  Lazarus,  in  his  "Life  of 
the  Soul,"  tells  a  good  story  of  a  German  who  went  to  the  Paris 
Exhibition,  and  remarked  to  his  companion  what  an  extra- 
ordinary people  the  French  were,  "  For  bread,  they  say  du 
pain!"  "Yes,"  said  the  other,  "and  we  say  bread."  "To 
be  sure,"  replied  the  first,  "  but  it  is  bread,  you  knou:"3 

1  Paris,  '  Pharmacologia  ;'  London,  1843,  p.  47. 

'-  Cliarlevoix,  vol.  vi.  p.  24.     For  a  similar  case,  see  the  'Penny  Cyclopredia,'  art. 
"Atropa  Mandragora  "  (mandrake). 
3  Lazarus,  'Leben  der  Seele  ;'  Berlin,  1856-7,  vol.  ii.  p.  77. 


124  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

As,  then,  men  confuse  the  word  and  the  idea,  in  much  the 
same  way  as  they  confuse  the  image  with  that  which  it  repre- 
sents, there  springs  up  a  set  of  practices  and  beliefs  concerning 
names,  much  like  those  relating  to  images.  Thus  it  is  thought 
that  the  utterance  of  a  word  ten  miles  off  has  a  direct  effect  on 
the  object  which  that  word  stands  for.  A  man  may  be  cursed 
or  bewitched  through  his  name,  as  well  as  through  his  image. 
You  may  lay  a  smock-frock  on  the  door-sill,  and  pronounce 
over  it  the  name  of  the  man  you  have  a  spite  against,  and  then 
when  you  beat  that  smock,  your  enemy  will  feel  every  blow  as 
well  as  if  he  were  inside  it  in  the  flesh.1  Thus,  too,  when  the 
root  of  the  dead-nettle  was  plucked  to  be  worn  as  a  charm 
against  intermittent  fevers,  it  was  necessary  to  say  for  what 
purpose,  and  for  whom,  and  for  whose  son  it  was  pulled  up, 
and  other  magical  plants  required  also  a  mention  of  the 
patient's  name  to 'make  them  work.2 

How  the  name  is  held  to  be  part  of  the  very  being  of  the  man 
who  bears  it,  so  that  by  it  his  personality  may  be  carried  away, 
and,  so  to  speak,  grafted  elsewhere,  appears  in  the  way  in  which 
the  sorcerer  uses  it  as  a  means  of  putting  the  life  of  his  victim 
into  the  image  upon  which  he  practises.  Thus  King  James  in 
his  '  Daemonology,'  says  that  "  the  devil  teacheth  how  to  make 
pictures  of  wax  or  clay,  that  by  roasting  thereof,  the  persons 
that  they  bear  the  name  of  may  be  continually  melted  or  dried 
away  by  continual  sickness."3  A  mediaeval  sermon  speaks  of 
baptizing  a  "wax"  to  bewitch  with;  and  in  the  eleventh 
century,  certain  Jews,  it  was  believed,-  made  a  waxen  image  of 
Bishop  Eberhard,  set  about  with  tapers,  bribed  a  clerk  to  bap- 
tize it,  and  set  fire  to  it  on  that  sabbath,  the  which  image 
burning  away  at  the  middle,  the  bishop  fell  grievously  sick  and 
died.* 

A  similar  train  of  thought  shows  itself  in  the  belief,  that  the 
utterance  of  the  name  of  a  deity  gives  to  man  a  means  of  direct 
communication  with  the  being  who  owns  it,  or  even  places  in 
his  hands  the  supernatural  power  of  that  being,  to  be  used  at 

1  Kuhn,  'Die  Herabkunft  des  Feuers  und  des  Gottertranks;'  Berlin,  1859,  p.  227. 
Wuttke,  pp.  16,  67.  3  Plin.,  xxii.  16,  24  ;  xxiii.  54. 

3  Brand,  voL  iii.  p.  10.  «  Grimm,  D.  M.,  p.  1047. 


IMAGES  AND  NAMES.  125 

his  will.  The  Moslems  hold  that  the  "great  name"  of  God 
(not  Allah,  which  is  a  mere  epithet),  is  known  only  to  prophets 
and  apostles,  who,  by  pronouncing  it,  can  transport  themselves 
from  place  to  place  at  will,  can  kill  the  living,  raise  the  dead, 
and  do  any  other  miracle.1 

The  concealment  of  the  name  of  the  tutelary  deity  of  Rome, 
for  divulging  which  Valerius  Soranus  is  said  to  have  paid  the 
penalty  of  death,  is  a  case  in  point.  As  to  the  reason  of  its 
being  kept  a  secret,  Pliny  says  that  Verrius  Flaccus  quotes 
authors  whom  he  thinks  trustworthy,  to  the  effect  that  when  the 
Romans  laid  siege  to  a  town,  the  first  step  was  for  the  priests  to 
summon  the  god  under  whose  guardianship  the  place  was,  and 
to  offer  him  the  same  or  a  greater  place  or  worship  among  the 
Romans.  This  practice,  Pliny  adds,  still  remains  in  the  ponti- 
fical discipline,  and  it  is  certainly  for  this  reason  that  it  has  been 
kept  secret  under  the  protection  of  what  god  Rome  itself  has 
been,  lest  its  enemies  should  use  a  like  proceeding.2 

Moreover,  as  man  puts  himself  into  communication  with 
spirits  through  their  names,  so  they  know  him  through  his 
name.  In  Borneo,  they  will  change  the  name  of  a  sickly  child 
to  deceive  the  evil  spirits  that  have  been  tormenting  it.3  In 
South  America,  among  the  Abipones  and  Lenguas,  when  a  man 
died,  his  family  and  neighbours  would  change  their  own  names4 
to  cheat  Death  when  he  should  come  to  look  for  them.  As 
examples  of  beliefs  connected  with  personal  names  among  more 
civilized  races,  may  be  mentioned  the  custom  in  Tonquin  of 
giving  young  children  horrid  names  to  frighten  the  demons 
from  them,5  the  Jewish  superstition  that  a  man's  destiny  may  be 
changed  by  changing  his  name,  and  the  Abyssinian  concealment 
of  the  child's  real  name,  lest  the  Budas  should  bewitch  him 
through  it.6 

It  is  perhaps  a  falling  off  from  these  extreme  instances  of  the 

1  Lane,  Mod.  Eg.,  vol.  i.  p.  361. 

•  Piin.,  xxviii.  4.    Plut.,  Q.  11.     Macrob.,  Sat.,  iii.  9.    See  Bayle,  art.  "Soranua." 
8  St.  John,  'Borneo,'  vol.  i.  p.  197. 

4  Dobrizhoffer,    'The  Abipones,'  E.  Tr. ;  London,  1822,  vol.  ii.  p.  273.     Soutliey, 
'History  of  Brazil ;  '  London,  1819,  vol.  iii.  p.  394. 

5  Richard,  ' Tonqiiin, '  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  ix.  p.  734. 

•  Eisenmenger,  part-i.  p.  489.     Parkyns,  'Abyssinia,'  vol.  ii.  p.  14tf. 


126  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

intimacy  with  which  name  and  object  have  grown  together  in  the 
savage  mind,  to  cite  the  practice  of  exchanging  names,  which  was 
found  in  the  West  Indies  at  the  time  of  Columbus,1  and  in  the 
South  Seas  by  Captain  Cook,  who  was  called  Oree,  while  his 
friend  Oree  went  by  the  name  of  Cookee.2  But  Cadwallader 
Colden's  account  of  his  new  name  is  admirable  evidence  of  what 
there  is  in  a  name  in  the  mind  of  the  savage.  "  The  first  Time 
I  was  among  the  Mohawks,  I  had  this  Compliment  from  one  of 
their  old  Sachems,  which  he  did,  by  giving  me  his  own  Name, 
Cayenderonrjiie.  He  had  been  a  notable  Warrior ;  and  he  told 
me,  that  now  I  had  a  Eight  to  assume  to  myself  all  the  Acts  of 
Valour  he  had  performed,  and  that  now  my  Name  would  echo 
from  Hill  to  Hill  over  all  the  Five  Nations."  When  Golden 
went  back  into  the  same  part  ten  or  twelve  years  later,  he  found 
that  he  was  still  known  by  the  name  he  had  thus  received,  and 
that  the  old  chief  had  taken  another.3 

Taking  a  still  wider  stretch,  the  power  of  association  grasps 
not  only  the  spoken  word,  but  its  written  representative.  It  has 
been  seen  how  the  Hindoo  sorcerers  wrote  the  name  of  their 
victim  on  the  breast  of  the  image  made  to  personate  him.  A 
Chinese  physician,  if  he  has  not  got  the  drug  he  requires  for 
his  patient,  will  write  the  prescription  on  a  piece  of  paper, 
and  let  the  sick  man  swallow  its  ashes,  or  an  infusion  of  the 
writing,  in  water.4  This  practice  is  no  doubt  very  old,  and 
may  even  descend  from  the  time  when  the  picture-element  in 
Chinese  writing,  now  almost  effaced,  was  still  clearly  distin- 
guishable, so  that  the  patient  would  at  least  have  the  satisfac- 
tion of  eating  a  picture,  not  a  mere  written  word.  Whether  the 
Moslems  got  the  idea  from  them  or  not,  I  do  not  know,  but 
among  them  a  verse  of  the  Koran  washed  off  into  water  and 
drunk,  or  even  water  from  a  cup  in  which  it  is  engraved,  is 

1  'Letters  of  Columbus'  (Hakluyt  Soc.);  London,  1847,  p.  217.     Rochefort,  'lies 
Antilles  ;'  Rotterdam,  KJ58,  p.  458. 

2  Cook,   First  Voy.   H,   vol.  ii.  p.   251.      Second  Voyage;    London,   2nd  edit., 
1777,  vol.  i.  p.  167.      See  Dumont  d'Urville,    'Voy.  de  1'Astrolabe,'  vol.  i.  p.  189 
(Australia). 

8  Colden,  'His*,  of  the  Five  Indian  Nations  of  Canada  ; '  London,  1747,  part  i 
p.  10. 
*  Davis,  voL  ii.  p.  215. 


IMAGES  AND  XAMES.  127 

*m  efficacious  remedy.1  Here  the  connexion  between  the  two 
ends  of  the  chain  is  very  remote  indeed.  The  arbitrary  cha- 
racters, which  represent  the  sound  of  the  word,  which  represents 
the  idea,  have  to  do  duty  for  the  idea  itself.  The  example  is  a 
striking  one,  and  will  serve  to  measure  the  strength  of  the 
tendency  of  the  uneducated  mind  to  give  an  outward  material 
reality  to  its  own  inward  processes. 

This  confusion  of  objective  with  subjective  connexion,  which 
shows  itself  so  uniform  in  principle,  though  so  various  in  details, 
in  the  practices  upon  images  and  names  done  with  a  view  of 
acting  through  them  on  their  originals  or  their  owners,  may  be 
applied  to  explain  one  branch  after  another  of  the  arts  of  the 
sorcerer  and  diviner,  till  it  almost  seems  as  though  we  were 
coming  near  the  end  of  his  list,  and  might  set  down  practices 
not  based  on  this  mental  process  as  exceptions  to  a  general  rule. 

"When  a  lock  of  hair  is  cut  off  as  a  memorial,  the  subjective 
connexion  between  it  and  its  former  owner,  is  not  severed.  In 
the  mind  of  the  friend  who  treasures  it  up,  it  recalls  thoughts 
of  his  presence,  it  is  still  something  belonging  to  him.  We 
know,  however,  that  the  objective  connexion  was  cut  by  the 
scissors,  and  that  what  is  done  to  that  hair  afterwards,  is  not 
felt  by  the  head  on  which  it  grew.  But  this  is  exactly  what  the 
savage  has  not  come  to  know.  He  feels  that  the  subjective  bond 
is  unbroken  in  his  own  mind,  and  he  believes  that  the  objective 
bond,  which  his  mind  never  gets  clearly  separate  from  it,  is 
unbroken  too.  Therefore,  in  the  remotest  parts  of  the  world, 
the  sorcerer  gets  clippings  of  the  hair  of  his  enemy,  parings  of 
his  nails,  leavings  of  his  food,  and  practises  upon  them,  that 
their  former  possessor  may  fall  sick  and  die.  This  is  why 
South  Sea  Island  chiefs  had  servants  always  following  them 
with  spittoons,  that  the  spittle  might  be  buried  in  some  secret 
place,  where  no  sorcerer  could  find  it,  and  why  even  brothers 
and  sisters  had  their  food  in  separate  baskets.  In  the  island  of 
Tanna,  in  the  New  Hebrides,  there  was  a  colony  of  disease- 
makers  who  lived  by  their  art.  They  collected  any  nahak  or 
rubbish  that  had  belonged  to  any  one,  such  as  the  skin  of  a 

1  Lane,  Mod.  Eg.,  vol.  i.  p.  347-8.  Petherick,  Egypt,  etc.  ;  Edinburgh,  1861, 
p.  221. 


128  IMAGES   AND  NAMES. 

banana  he  had  eaten,  -wrapped  it  in  a  leaf  like  a  cigar,  and  burn! 
it  slowly  at  one  end.  As  it  burnt,  the  owner  got  worse  and 
worse,  and  if  it  was  burnt  to  the  end,  he  died.  When  a  man 
fell  ill,  he  knew  that  some  sorcerer  was  burning  his  rubbish,  and 
shell-trumpets,  which  could  be  heard  for  miles,  were  blown  to 
signal  to  the  sorcerers  to  stop,  and  wait  for  the  presents  which 
would  be  sent  next  morning.  Night  after  night,  Mr.  Turner 
used  to  hear  the  melancholy  too-tooing  of  the  shells,  entreating 
the  wizards  to  stop  plaguing  their  victims.  And  when  a  disease- 
maker  fell  sick  himself,  he  believed  that  some  one  was  burning 
his  rubbish,  and  had  his  shells  too  blown  for  mercy.1  It  is  not 
needful  to  give  another  description  after  this,  the  process  is  so 
perfectly  the  same  in  principle  wherever  it  is  found,  all  over 
Polynesia,2  in  Africa,3  in  India,4  in  North  and  South  America,5 
in  Australia.6  Superstitions  of  this  kind  as  to  hair  and  nails 
belong  to  Zoroastrian,  Jewish,  and  Moslem  lore.  They  are  alive 
to  this  day  in  Europe,  where,  for  instance,  the  German  who 
walks  over  nails  hurts  their  former  owner,  and  the  Italian  does 
not  like  to  trust  a  lock  of  his  hair  in  the  hands  of  any  one,  lest 
he  should  be  bewitched  or  enamoured  against  his  will.7 

One  of  the  best  accounts  we  have  of  the  art  of  procuring 
death  by  sorcery,  is  given  in  Sir  James  Emerson  Tennent's 
work  on  Ceylon.  It  is  not  that  there  is  much  that  is  peculiar 
in  the  processes  it  describes,  but  just  the  contrary  ;  its  import- 
ance lies  in  its  presenting,  among  a  somewhat  isolated  race, 
a  system  of  sorcery,  which  is  quite  a  little  museum  of  the  arts 
practised  among  the  most  dissimilar  tribes  in  the  remotest 
regions  of  the  world.  The  account  is  as  follows  :< — "  The  vidahu 

1  Turner,  'Polynesia,'  pp.  18,  89,  424. 

3  Polack,  '  Manners  and  Customs  cf  the  New  Zealandere  ;'  London,  1840,  vol.  i. 
p.  •>-'.  Ellis,  voL  ii.  p.  228.  Williams,  'Fiji,'  vol.  L  p.  249.  Purcbas,  vol.  ii. 
p.  1652,  etc. 

3  Casalis,  p.  276.     J.  L.  "Wilson,  p.  215.     D.  &  C.  Livingstone,  '  Exp.  to  Zambesi ; ' 
London,  1865,  p.  46. 

4  Roberts,  Or.  Illustr.,  p.  47C. 

5  Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  ii.  p.  168.     Fitz  Roy,  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc. ;  London,  1861,  p.  5. 
Forbes  in  Journ.  Eth.  ioc.  vol.  ii.  p.  236. 

•  Stanbridge,  id.  p.  299. 

"  See  Lipschiitz,  '  De  Communi  Humani  Generis  Origine  ; '  Hamburg,  1864,  p.  f>9, 
etc.;  Lane,  Thousand  and  One  N.,  voL  ii.  p.  215  ;  fctory,  Rola  di  Roma,  vol.  ii. 
p.  342. 


IMAGES   AXD   NAMES.  129 

stated  to  the  magistrate  that  a  general  belief  existed  among  the 
Tamils  [of  Ceylon]  in  the  fatal  effects  of  a  ceremony,  performed 
with  the  skull  of  a  child,  with  the  design  of  producing  the  death 
of  an  individual  against  whom  the  incantation  is  directed.  The 
skull  of  a  male  child,  and  particularly  of  a  first-born,  is  preferred, 
and  the  effects  are  regarded  as  more  certain  if  it  be  killed 
expressly  for  the  occasion ;  but  for  ordinary  purposes,  the  head 
of  one  who  had  died  a  natural  death  is  presumed  to  be  sufficient. 
The  form  of  the  ceremony  is  to  draw  certain  figures  and  caba- 
listic signs  upon  the  skull,  after  it  has  been  scraped  and  denuded 
of  the  flesh  ;  adding  the  name  of  the  individual  upon  whom  the 
charm  is  to  take  effect.  A  paste  is  then  prepared,  composed  of 
sand  from  the  footprints  of  the  intended  victim,  and  a  portion  of 
his  hair  moistened  with  his  saliva,  and  this,  being  spread  upon 
a  leaden  plate,  is  taken,  together  with  the  skull,  to  the  graveyard 
of  the  village,  where  for  forty  nights  the  evil  spirits  are  invoked 
to  destroy  the  person  so  denounced.  The  universal  belief  of  the 
natives  is,  that  as  the  ceremony  proceeds,  and  the  paste  dries  up 
on  the  leaden  plate,  the  sufferer  will  waste  away  and  decline,  and 
that  death,  as  an  inevitable  consequence,  must  follow."1  Here 
we  have  at  once  the  name,  the  earth-cutting,  the  hair  and  saliva, 
the  cursing,  and  the  drying  up.  The  use  of  the  skull  lies  in  its 
association  with  death,  and  we  shall  presently  find  it  used  in  the 
same  way  in  a  very  different  place. 

Even  the  spirits  of  the  dead  may  be  acted  on  through  the 
remains  of  their  bodies.  Though  the  savage  commonly  holds 
that  after  death  the  soul  goes  its  own  way,  for  the  most  part 
independently  of  the  body  to  which  it  once  belonged,  yet  in  his 
mind  the  soul  and  the  body  of  his  enemy  or  his  friend  are  in- 
separably associated,  and  thus  he  comes  to  hold,  in  his  inconsis- 
tent way,  that  a  bond  of  connexion  must  after  all  survive  be- 
tween thorn.  Therefore,  the  African  fastens  the  jaw  of  his  slain 
enemy  to  a  tabor  or  a  horn,  and  his  skull  to  the  big  drum,  that 
every  crash  and  blast  may  send  a  thrill  of  agony  through  the 
ghost  of  their  dead  owner.2 

The  connexion  between  a  cut  lock  of  hair  and  its  former  owner 

1  Tennent,  'Ceylon,'  vol.  ii.  p.  545. 

s  Rimer,  'Guinea,'  p.  112.     Klemm,  C.  0.,  vol.  iii.  p.  352. 


ICQ  IMAGES   AND  NAMES. 

is,  in  the  mind  at  least,  much  closer  than  is  necessary  for  theso 
purposes.  As  has  been  seen,  the  remains  of  a  person's  food  are 
sufficient  to  bewitch  him  by.  In  a  witchcraft  case  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  the  supposed  sorceress  confessed  that  "  there  was 
a  glove  of  the  said  Lord  Henry  buried  in  the  ground,  and  as 
that  glove  did  rot  and  waste,  so  did  the  liver  of  the  said  lord  rot 
and  waste."1  Indeed,  any  association  of  ideas  in  a  man's  mind, 
the  vaguest  similarity  of  form  or  position,  even  a  mere  coinci- 
dence in  time,  is  sufficient  to  enable  the  magician  to  work  from 
association  in  his  own  mind,  to  association  in  the  material 
world.  Nor  is  there  any  essential  difference  in  the  process, 
whether  his  art  is  that  of  the  diviner  or  of  the  sorcerer,  that  is, 
whether  his  object  is  merely  to  foretell  something  that  will  happen 
to  a  person,  or  actually  to  make  that  something  happen  ;  or 
if  he  is  only  concerned  with  the  searching  out  of  the  hidden 
past,  the  process  remains  much  the  same,  the  intention  only  is 
different. 

Out  of  the  endless  store  of  examples,  I  will  do  no  more  than 
take  a  few  typical  cases.  They  hang  up  charms  in  the  Pacific 
Islands  to  keep  thieves  and  trespassers  out  of  plantations  ;  a 
few  cocoa-nut  leaves,  plaited  into  the  form  of  a  shark,  will  cause 
the  thief  who  disregards  it  to  be  eaten  by  a  real  one  ;  two  sticks, 
set  one  across  the  other,  will  send  a  pain  right  across  his  body, 
and  the  very  sight  of  these  tabus  will  send  thieves  and  trespassers 
off  in  terror.2  In  Kamchatka,  when  something  had  been  stolen, 
and  the  thief  could  not  be  discovered,  they  would  throw  nerves 
or  sinews  into  the  fire,  that  as  they  shrank  and  wriggled  with 
the  heat,  the  like  might  happen  to  the  body  of  the  thief.3  In 
New  Zealand,  when  a  male  child  had  been  .baptized  in  the  native 
manner,  and  had  received  its  name,  they  thrust  small  pebbles, 
the  size  of  a  large  pin's  head,  down  its  throat,  to  make  its  heart 
callous,  hard,  and  incapable  of  pity.4  Eound  the  neck  of  a 
Basuto  child  in  South  Africa,  one  may  see  hanging  a  kite's  foot 
to  give  swiftness,  a  lion's  claw  for  security,  or  an  iron  ring  to 

1  Brand,  voj.  iii.  p.  29.  2  Turner,  p.  294. 

•  Kracheninnikow,  Descr.   du  Kamtcliatka ;  Paris,  1768,  p.  22.     Klemm,  C.  G., 
Tol.  ii.  p.  297. 
4  Yate,  p.  83. 


IMAGES  AND  NAMES.  131 

give  a  power  of  iron  resistance.1  The  Red  Indian  hunter  wears 
ornaments  of  the  claws  of  the  grizzly  bear,  that  he  may  be 
endowed  with  its  courage  and  ferocity,2  a  simpler  charm  than 
that  whereby  the  magicians  made  men  invincible  in  Pliny's  time, 
in  which  the  head  and  tail  of  a  dragon,  marrow  of  a  lion  and 
hair  from  his  forehead,  foam  of  a  victorious  racehorse,  and  claws 
of  a  dog,  were  bound  together  in  a  piece  of  deerskin,  with 
alternate  sinews  of  a  deer  and  a  gazelle.3  The  Tyrolese  hunter 
still  wears  tufts  of  eagle's  down  in  his  hat,  to  gain  the  eagle's 
keen  sight  and  courage.4  Many  of  the  food  prejudices  of  savage 
races  depend  on  the  belief  which  belongs  to  this  class  of  super- 
stitions, that  the  qualities  of  the  eaten  pass  into  the  eater. 
Thus,  among  the  Dayaks,  young  men  sometimes  abstain  from 
the  flesh  of  deer,  lest  it  should  make  them  timid,  and  before  a 
pig-hunt  they  avoid  oil,  lest  the  game  should  slip  through  their 
fingers,5  and  in  the  same  way  the  flesh  of  slow-going  and 
cowardly  animals  is  not  to  be  eaten  by  the  warriors  of  South 
America  ;  but  they  love  the  meat  of  tigers,  stags,  and  boars,  for 
courage  and  speed.6  An  English  merchant  in  Shanghai,  at  the 
time  of  the  Taeping  attack,  met  his  Chinese  servant  carrying 
home  a  heart,  and  asked  him  what  he  had  got  there.  He  said 
it  was  the  heart  of  a  rebel,  and  that  he  was  going  to  take  it 
home  and  eat  it  to  make  him  brave.  The  very  same  thing  is 
recorded  in  Ashanti,  where  the  chiefs  ate  the  heart  of  Sir  Charles 
M'Carthy,  to  obtain  his  courage.7 

When  a  Maori  war-party  is  to  start,  the  priests  set  up  sticks  in 
the  ground  to  represent  the  warriors,  and  he  whose  stick  is  blown 
down  is  to  fall  in  the  battle.8  In  the  Fiji  Islands,  the  diviner 
will  shake  a  bunch  of  dry  cocoa-nuts  to  see  whether  a  sick  child 
will  die  ;  if  all  fall  off,  it  will  recover  ;  if  any  remain  on,  it  will 
die.  He  will  spin  a  cocoa-nut,  and  decide  a  question  according 
to  where  the  eye  of  the  nut  looks  towards  when  at  rest  again, 
or  he  will  sit  on  the  ground  and  take  omens  from  his  legs  ;  if 
the  right  leg  trembles  first,  it  is  good  ;  if  the  left,  it  is  evil ;  or 

1  Casalis,  p.  271.  2  Schoolcraft,  part  iii.  p.  69. 

3  Plin.,  xxix.  20.  4  Wuttke,  p.  188. 

5  St.  John,  vol.  i.  p.  176.         •  Dobrizhoffer,  vol.  i.  p.  258.     Rochefort,  p.  410. 
7  J.  L.  Wilson,  p.  168.  8  Polack,  vol.  i.  p.  270. 

K  2 


132  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

he  will  decide  by  whether  a  leaf  tastes  sweet  or  bitter,  or 
whether  he  bites  it  clean  through  at  once,  or  whether  drops  of 
water  will  run  down  his  arm  to  the  wrist,  and  give  a  good 
answer,  or  fall  off  by  the  way  and  give  a  bad  one.1  In  British 
Guiana,  when  young  children  are  betrothed,  trees  are  planted 
by  the  respective  parties  in  witness  of  the  contract,  and  if  either 
tree  should  happen  to  wither,  the  child  it  belongs  to  is  sure  to 
die.2  A  slightly  different  idea  appears  north  of  the  Isthmus, 
in  the  Central  American  tale,  where  the  two  brothers,  starting 
on  their  dangerous  journey  to  the  land  of  Xibalba,  where  their 
father  had  perished,  plant  each  a  cane  in  the  middle  of  their 
grandmother's  house,  that  she  may  know  by  its  flourishing  or 
withering  whether  they  are  alive  or  dead.3  And  again,  to  take 
stories  from  the  Old  World,  when  Devasmita  would  not  let 
Guhasena  leave  her  to  go  with  his  merchandise  to  the  land  of 
Cathay,  Siva  appeared  to  them  in  a  dream,  and  gave  to  each  a 
red  lotus  that  would  fade  if  the  other  were  unfaithful  ;4  and  so, 
in  the  German  tale,  when  the  two  daughters  of  Queen  Wilo- 
witte  were  turned  into  flowers,  the  two  princes  who  were  their 
lovers  had  each  a  sprig  of  his  mistress's  flower,  that  was  to  stay 
fresh  while  their  love  was  true.5 

On  this  principle  of  association,  it  is  easy  to  understand  how, 
in  the  Old  World,  the  names  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  their 
position  at  the  time  of  a  man's  birth,  should  have  to  do  with 
his  character  and  fate ;  while,  in  the  astrology  of  the  Aztecs, 
the  astronomical  signs  have  a  similar  connexion  with  the  parts 
of  the  human  body,  so  that  the  sign  of  the  Skull  has  to  do  with 
the  head,  and  the  sign  of  the  Flint  with  the  teeth.6  Why  fish 
may  be  caught  in  most  plenty  when  the  Sun  is  in  the  sign  of 
Pisces,  is  as  clear  as  the  reason  why  trees  are  to  be  felled,  or 
vegetables  gathered,  or  manure  used,  while  the  moon  is  on  the 

1  Williams,  'Fiji, 'p.  228. 

1  Rev.  J.  H.  Bernau,    'Missionary  Labours  in  British  Guiana;'  London,  1847, 
p.  59. 

3  Brasseur,  'Popol  Yuh  : '  Paris,  1861,  p.  141. 

4  Somadeva  Bhatta,  vol.  i.  p.  139. 

*  J.  and  W.   Grimm,    '  Kinder  und  Hausmarchen ; '  Gottingen,   1857-6,  vol.  i. 
p.  427,  vol.  iii.  pp.  145,  328.     See  also  Bastiaii,  vol.  iii.  p.  19^  ^Papuans) ;  Dumont 
d'Urville,  vol.  v.  p.  444  (New  Zealand). 

•  Kingsborough,  Vatican  MS.,  vol.  ii.  pi.  75 ;  vols.  v.  and  vi. 


IMAGES  AND  NAMES.  133 

wane,  for  these  things  have  to  fall,  or  be  consumed,  or  rot ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  grafts  are  to  be  set  while  the  moon  is 
waxing,1  and  it  is  only  lucky  to  begin  an  undertaking  when  the 
moon  is  on  the  increase,  as  has  been  held  even  in  modern  times. 
It  is  as  clear  why  the  Chinese  doctor  should  administer  tne 
heads,  middles,  and  roots  of  plants,  as  medicine  for  the  heads, 
bodies,  and  legs  of  his  patients  respectively,  and  why  passages 
in  books  looked  at  while  some  thought  is  in  the  reader's  mind, 
should  be  taken  as  omens,  from  Western  Europe  to  Eastern 
Asia,  in  old  times  and  new.  When  it  is  borne  in  mind  that 
the  Tahitians  ascribe  their  internal  pains  to  demons  who  are 
inside  them,  tying  their  intestines  in  knots,  it  becomes  easy  to 
understand  why  the  Laplanders,  under  certain  circumstances, 
object  to  knots  being  tied  in  clothes,  and  how  it  comes  to  pass 
that  in  Germany  witches  are  still  believed  to  tie  magic  knots, 
which  bring  about  a  corresponding  knotting  inside  their  victims' 
bodies.  And  so  on  from  one  phase  to  another  of  witchcraft  and 
superstition. 

It  would  be  quite  intelligible  on  this  principle,  that  the  sor- 
cerer should  think  it  possible  to  impress  his  own  mind  upon  the 
outer  world,  even  without  any  external  link  of  communication. 
The  mere  presence  of  the  thought  in  his  mind  might  be  enough 
to  cause,  as  it  were  by  reflection,  a  corresponding  reality.  He 
is  usually  found,  however,  working  his  will  by  some  material 
means,  or  at  least  by  an  utterance  of  it  into  the  world.  This 
seems  to  be  the  case  with  the  rainmaker,  or  weather-changer, 
wherever  he  is  met  with,  that  is  to  say,  among  most  races  of 
man  below  the  highest  culture.  Sometimes  he  works  by  clear 
association  of  ideas,  as  the  Samoan  rainmakers  with  their 
sacred  stone,  which  they  wet  when  they  want  rain,  and  put  to 
the  fire  to  dry  when  they  want  to  dry  the  weather,2  or  the 
Lapland  wizards,  with  the  winds  they  used  to  sell  to  our  sea- 
captains  in  a  knotted  cord,  to  be  let  out  by  untying  it  knot  by 
knot.  In  the  notable  practice  of  killing  an  enemy  by  prophesy- 
ing that  he  will  die,  or  by  uttering  a  wish  that  he  may,  the 
outward  act  of  speech  comes  between  the  thought  and  the  reality, 
but  perhaps  a  mere  unspoken  wish  may  be  held  sufficient.  This 
1  Plin.,ix.  35  ;  xviii.  75  ;  xvii.  24.  2  Turner,  p.  047,  and  see  p.  423. 


134  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

kind  of  bewitching  is  found  over  almost  as  wide  a  range  as  the 
practices  of  the  rainmaker,  and  extends  like  them  into  the  upper 
regions  of  our  race. 

"  There  dwalt  a  weaver  in  Moffat  toun, 
That  said  the  minister  wad  dee  sune  ; 
The  minister  dee'd  ;  and  the  fouk  o'  tho  toun, 
They  brant  the  weaver  wi'  the  wudd  o'  his  lume, 
And  ca'd  it  weel-wared  on  the  warlock  loon." 1 

As  has  been  so  often  said,  these  two  arts  are  encouraged  by 
the  unfailing  test  of  success,  if  they  have  but  time  enough,  and 
the  latter  justifies  itself  by  killing  the  patient  through  his  own 
imagination.  When  he  hears  that  he  has  been  "  wished,"  he 
goes  home  and  takes  to  his  bed  at  once.  It  is  impossible  to 
realize  the  state  of  mind  into  which  the  continual  terror  of  witch- 
craft brings  the  savage.  It  is  held  by  many  tribes  to  be  the 
necessary  cause  of  death.  Over  great  part  of  Africa,  in  South 
America  and  Polynesia,  when  a  man  dies,  the  question  is  at  once, 
"  who  killed  him  ?  "  and  the  soothsayer  is  resorted  to  to  find  the 
murderer,  that  the  dead  man  may  be  avenged.  The  Abipones 
held  that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  natural  death,  and  that  if  it 
were  not  for  the  magicians  and  the  Spaniards,  no  man  would  die 
unless  he  were  killed.  The  notion  that,  after  all,  a  man  might 
perhaps  die  of  himself,  comes  out  curiously  in  the  address  of  an 
old  Australian  to  the  corpse  at  a  funeral,  "  If  thou  comest  to  the 
other  black  fellows  and  they  ask  thee  who  killed  thee,  answer, 
'No  one,  but  I  died.'"2 

There  are  of  course  branches  of  the  savage  wizard's  art  that 
are  not  connected  with  the  mental  process  to  which  so  many  of 
his  practices  may  be  referred.  He  is  often  a  doctor  with  some 
skill  in  surgery  and  medicine,  and  an  expert  juggler  ;  and  often, 
though  knavery  is  not  the  basis  of  his  profession,  a  cunning 
knave.  One  of  the  most  notable  superstitions  of  the  human 
race,  high  and  low,  is  the  belief  in  the  Evil  Eye.  Knowing, 
as  we  all  do,  the  strange  power  which  one  mind  has  of  working 
upon  another  through  the  eye,  a  power  which  is  not  the  less 
certain  for  being  wholly  unexplained,  it  seems  not  unreasonable 

1  R.  Chambers,  '  Popular  Rhymes  of  Scotland  ; '  Edinburgh,  1826,  p.  23. 
*  Lang,  'Queensland  ;'  London,  1861,  p.  360. 


IMAGES  AND  NAMES.  135 

to  suppose  that  the  helief  in  the  mysterious  influences  of  the 
Evil  Eye  flows  from  the  knowledge  of  what  the  eye  can  do  as  an 
instrument  of  the  will,  while  experience  has  not  yet  set  such 
limits  as  we  recognize  to  the  range  of  its  action.  The  horror 
which  savages  so  often  have  of  being  looked  full  in  the  face,  is 
quite  consistent  with  this  feeling.  You  may  look  at  him  or  his, 
but  you  must  not  stare,  and  above  all,  you  must  not  look  him 
full  in  the  face,  that  is  to  say,  you  must  not  do  just  what  the 
stronger  mind  does  when  it  uses  the  eye  as  an  instrument  to 
force  its  will  upon  the  weaker. 

It  is  clear  that  the  superstitions  which  have  been  cursorily 
described  in  this  chapter,  are  no  mere  casual  extravagances  of 
the  human  mind.  The  way  in  which  the  magic  arts  have  taken 
to  themselves  the  verb  to  "do,"  as  claiming  to  be  "  doing,"  par 
excellence,  sometimes  gives  us  an  opportunity  of  testing  their 
importance  in  the  popular  mind.  A»  in  Madagascar  sorcerers 
and  diviners  go  by  the  name  of  mpiasa,  and  in  British  Columbia 
of  ooshtuk-yu,  both  terms  meaning  "workers,"1  so  words  in  the 
languages  of  our  Aryan  race  show  a  like  transition.  In  Sanskrit, 
magic  has  possessed  itself  of  a  whole  family  of  words  derived 
from  AT,  to  "do,"  krtya,  sorcery,  krtvan,  enchanting,  (literally, 
working,)  kdrmana,  enchantment  (from  karman,  a  deed,  work), 
and  so  on,  while  Latin  facere  has  produced  in  the  Komance 
languages  Italian  fattura,  enchantment,  old  French  faiture, 
Portuguese  feit'«;o  (whence  fetish),  and  a  dozen  more,  and 
Grimm  holds  that  the  most  probable  derivation  of  zauber,  Old 
High  German  zoupar,  is  from  zouwan,  Gothic  tdnjan,  to  do, 
as  modern  German  anthun  means  to  bewitch,  and  other  like 
etymologies  are  to  be  found.2  The  belief  and  practices  to  which 
such  words  refer  form  a  compact  and  organic  whole,  mostly 
developed  from  a  state  of  mind  in  which  subjective  and  objective 
connexions  are  not  yet  clearly  separated.  "What  then  does  this 
mass  of  evidence  show  from  the  ethnologist's  point  of  view; 
what  is  the  position  of  sorcery  in  the  history  of  mankind  ? 

When   Dr.  Martius,  the   Bavarian  traveller,  was  lying  one 

1  Ellis,  'Madagascar ; '  vol.  i.  p.  73.     Sproat,  'Scenes  of  Savage  Life,'  p.  169. 

2  Pictet,  'Origines  ;'  part  ii.  p.  641.     Diez,  Worterb.   s.  r.  "fattizio."     Grimm, 
D.  M.  p.  9J4,  etc.     See  Diefenbach,  Vergl.  Wurterb.  i.  12  ;  ii.  6^9. 


136  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

night  in  his  hammock  in  an  Indian  hut  in  South  America,  and 
all  the  inhabitants  seemed  to  he  asleep,  each  family  in  its  own 
place,  his  reflexions  were  interrupted  by  a  strange  sight.  "  In  a 
dark  corner  there  arose  an  old  woman,  naked,  covered  with  dust 
and  ashes,  a  miserable  picture  of  hunger  and  wretchedness ;  it 
was  the  slave  of  my  hosts,  a  captive  taken  from  another  tribe. 
She  crept  cautiously  to  the  hearth  and  blew  up  the  fire,  brought 
out  some  herbs  and  bits  of  human  hair,  murmured  something  in 
an  earnest  tone,  and  grinned  and  gesticulated  strangely  towards 
the  children  of  her  masters.  She  scratched  a  skull,  threw  herbs 
and  hair  rolled  into  balls  into  the  fire,  and  so  on.  For  a  long 
while  I  could  not  conceive  what  all  this  meant,  till  at  last 
springing  from  my  hammock  and  corning  close  to  her,  I  saw  by 
her  terror  and  the  imploring  gesture  she  made  to  me  not  to 
betray  her,  that  she  was  practising  magic  arts  to  destroy  the 
children  of  her  enemies  and  oppressors."  "  This,"  he  continues, 
"  was  not  the  first  example  of  sorcery  I  had  met  with  among  the 
Indians.  When  I  considered  what  delusions  and  darkness  must 
have  been  working  in  the  human  mind  before  man  could  come 
to  fear  and  invoke  dark  unknown  powers  for  another's  hurt, — 
when  I  considered  that  so  complex  a  superstition  was  but  the 
remnant  of  an  originally  pure  worship  of  nature,  and  what  a 
chain  of  complications  must  have  preceded  such  a  degradation," 
etc.  etc.1 

I  cannot  but  think  that  Dr.  Martius's  deduction  is  the  abso- 
lute reverse  of  the  truth.  Looking  at  the  practices  of  sorcery 
among  the  lower  races  as  a  whole,  they  have  not  the  appearance 
of  mutilated  and  misunderstood  fragments  of  a  higher  system  of 
belief  and  knowledge.  Among  savage  tribes  we  find  families  of 
customs  and  superstitions  in  great  part  traceable  to  the  same 
principle,  the  confusion  of  imagination  and  reality,  of  subjective 
and  objective,  of  the  mind  and  the  outer  world.  Among  the 
higher  races  we  find  indeed  many  of  the  same  customs,  but  tli^y 
are  scattered,  practised  by  the  vulgar  with  little  notion  of  their 
meaning,  looked  down  upon  with  contempt  by  the  more  in- 
structed, or  explained  as  mystic  symbolisms,  and  at  last  dropped 

1  Dr.  v.  Martius,  '  Vergangenheit  und  Zukunft  der  Amerikanischen  Menschlitit  ; ' 
1839.  But  see  below,  chap,  xiii.,  as  to  this  eminent  ethnologist's  change  of  opinion. 


IMAGES   AND   NAMES.  137 

off  one  by  one  as  the  world  grows  wiser.  There  is  a  curious 
handful  of  plain  savage  superstitions  among  the  rules  to  which 
the  Roman  Flamen  Dialis  had  to  conform.  He  was  not  only 
prohibited  from  touching  a  dog,  a  she-goat,  raw  meat,  beans, 
and  ivy,  but  he  might  not  even  name  them,  he  might  not  have 
a  knot  tied  in  his  clothes,  and  the  parings  of  his  nails  and  the 
clippings  of  his  hair  were  collected  and  buried  under  a  lucky 
tree.1  So  little  difference  does  the  mere  course  of  time  make  in 
such  things  as  these,  that  a  modern  missionary  to  a  savage  tribe 
may  learn  to  understand  them  better  than  the  Romans  who 
practised  them  two  thousand  years  ago. 

It  is  quite  true  that  there  are  anomalies  among  the  supersti- 
tious practices  of  the  lower  races,  proceedings  of  which  the 
meaning  is  not  clear,  signs  of  the  breaking-down  or  stiffening 
into  formalism  of  beliefs  carried  down  by  tradition  to  a  distance 
from  their  source ;  and  besides,  the  rites  of  an  old  religion,  car- 
ried down  through  a  new  one,  may  mix  with  such  practices  as 
have  been  described  here,  while  the  adherents  of  one  religion 
are  apt  to  ascribe  to  magic  the  beliefs  and  wonders  of  another, 
as  the  Christians  held  Odin,  and  the  Romans  Moses,  to  have 
been  mighty  enchanters  of  ancient  times.  But  when  we  see  the 
whole  system  of  sorcery  and  divination  comparatively  compact 
and  intelligible  among  savage  tribes,  less  compact  and  less 
intelligible  among  the  lower  civilized  races,  and  still  less  among 
ourselves,  there  seems  reason  to  think  that  such  imperfection 
and  inconsistency  as  are  to  be  found  among  this  class  of  super- 
stitions in  the  lower  levels  of  our  race,  are  signs  of  a  degenera- 
tion (so  to  speak)  from  a  system  of  error  that  was  more  perfect 
and  harmonious  in  a  yet  lower  condition  of  mankind,  when  man 
had  a  less  clear  view  of  the  difference  between  what  was  in  him 
and  what  was  out  of  him,  than  the  lowest  savages  we  have  ever 
studied, — when  his  life  was  more  like  a  long  dream  than  even 
the  life  that  the  Puris  are  leading  at  this  day,  deep  in  the  forests 
of  South  America. 

There  is  a  remarkable  peculiarity  by  which  the  sorcery  of  the 
savage  seems  to  repudiate  the  notion  of  its  having  come  down 
from  something  higher,  and  to  date  itself  from  the  childhood  of 

1  Aulus  Gellius,  'Socles  Atticw,'  x.  15      Plut.,  Q.  R.,  cix.  etc. 


138  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

the  human  race.  There  is  one  musical  instrument  (if  the  name 
may  be  allowed  to  it)  which  we  give  over  to  young  children,  who 
indeed  thoroughly  appreciate  and  enjoy  it, — the  rattle. 

"  Behold  the  child,  by  Nature's  kindly  law. 
Pleased  with  a  rattle,  tickled  with  a  straw." 

When  the  dignity  of  manhood  is  to  be  conferred  on  a  Siamese 
prince  by  cutting  his  hair  and  giving  him  a  new  dress,  they 
shake  a  rattle  before  him  as  he  goes,  to  show  that  till  the 
ceremony  is  performed,  he  is  still  a  child.  As  if  to  keep  us 
continually  in  mind  of  his  place  in  history,  the  savage  magician 
clings  with  wonderful  pertinacity  to  the  same  instrument.  It 
is  a  bunch  of  hoofs  tied  together,  a  blown  bladder  with  peas  in 
it,  or,  more  often  than  anything  else,  a  calabash  with  stones  or 
shells  or  bones  inside.  It  is  his  great  instrument  in  curing  the 
sick,  the  accompaniment  of  his  medicine-songs,  and  the  symbol 
of  his  profession,  among  the  Red  Indians,  among  the  South 
American  tribes,  and  in  Africa.  For  the  magician's  work,  it 
holds  its  own  against  far  higher  instruments,  the  whistles  and 
pipes  of  the  American,  and  even  the  comparatively  high -class 
flutes,  harmonicons,  and  stringed  instruments  of  the  negro.1 
Next  above  the  rattle  in  the  scale  of  musical  instruments  is  the 
drum,  and  it  too  has  been  to  a  great  extent  adopted  by  the 
sorcerer,  and,  often  painted  with  magic  figures ;  it  is  an  impor- 
tant implement  to  him  in  Lapland,  in  Siberia,  among  some 
North  American  and  some  South  American  tribes.2  The  cling- 
ing together  of  savage  sorcery  with  these  childish  instruments, 
is  in  full  consistency  with  the  theory  that  both  belong  to  the 
infancy  of  mankind.  With  less  truth  to  nature  and  history,  the 
modern  spirit-rapper,  though  his  bringing  up  the  spirits  of  the 
dead  by  doing  hocus-pocus  under  a  table  or  in  a  dark  room  is  so 
like  the  proceedings  of  the  African  mganga  or  the  Red  Indian 

1  Catlin,  vol.  L  p.  39,  109.     Schoolcraft,  part  i.  p.  310  ;  part  ii.  p.  179.     Charle- 
Toix,  vol.  vi.  p.  187     Burton,  'Central  Africa,"  vol.  i.  p.  44 ;  vol.  ii.  p.  295.    Purchas, 
vol.  iv.  p.  1339,  J520,  etc.  etc.     Dobrizhoffer,  vol.  ii.  p.  72.     Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  ii. 
p.  169,  171-2.     See  Strabo,  xv.  1,  22. 

2  Regnard,    '  Lapland,"  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  i.  p.    163,   180.      Ravenstein,  p.  93. 
Molina,   'Hist,   of  Chile,"  E,  Tr.  ;  London,  1809,  vol.  ii.  p.  106.     Falkner,   'Pata- 
gonia,' Hereford,  1774,  p.  117.     See  Baot.an,  voL  ii.  p.  123. 


IMAGES  AND  NAMES.  139 

medicine-man,  has  cast  off  the  proper  accompaniments  of  his 
trade,  and  juggles  with  fiddles  and  accordions. 

The  question  whether  there  is  any  historical  connexion 
among  the  superstitious  practices  of  the  lower  races,  is  distinct 
from  that  of  their  development  from  the  human  mind.  On  the 
whole,  the  similarity  that  runs  through  the  sorcerer's  art  in  the 
most  remote  countries,  not  only  in  principle,  but  so  often  in 
details,  as  for  instance  in  the  wide  prevalence  of  the  practice 
of  bewitching  by  locks  of  hair  and  rubbish  which  once  belonged 
to  the  victim,  often  favours  the  view  that  these  coincidences  are 
not  independent  growths  from  the  same  principle,  but  practices 
which  have  spread  from  one  geographical  source.  I  have  put 
together  in  another  place  (Chapter  X.)  some  accounts  of  one  of 
the  most  widely  spread  phenomena  of  sorcery,  the  pretended  ex- 
traction of  bits  of  wood,  stone,  hair,  and  such  things,  from  the 
bodies  of  the  sick,  which  is  based  upon  the  belief  that  disease  is 
caused  by  such  objects  having  been  conjured  into  them.  The 
value  of  this  belief  to  the  ethnologist  depends  much  on  its  being 
difficult  to  explain  it,  and  therefore  also  difficult  to  look  upon  it 
as  having  often  arisen  independently  in  the  human  mind.  But 
from  the  intelligible,  and  to  a  particular  state  of  mind  one  might 
even  say  reasonable,  beliefs  and  practices  which  have  been  de- 
scribed in  the  present  chapter,  it  seems  hardly  prudent  to  draw 
inferences  as  to  the  descent  and  communication  of  the  races 
among  whom  they  are  found,  at  least  while  the  ethnological 
argument  from  beliefs  and  customs  is  still  in  its  infancy. 

To  turn  now  to  a  different  subject,  the  same  state  of  mind 
which  has  had  so  large  a  share  in  the  development  of  sorcery, 
has  also  manifested  itself  in  a  very  remarkable  series  of  obser- 
vances regarding  spoken  words,  prohibiting  the  mention  of  the 
names  of  people,  or  even  sometimes  of  animals  and  things.  A 
man  will  not  utter  his  own  name  ;  husband  and  wife  will  not 
utter  one  another's  names ;  the  son  or  daughter-in-law  will  not 
mention  the  name  of  the  father  or  mother-in-law,  and  vice  versa ; 
the  names  of  chiefs  may  not  be  uttered,  nor  the  names  of  certain 
other  persons,  nor  of  superhuman  beings,  nor  of  animals  and 
things  to  which  supernatural  powers  are  ascribed.  These  various 
prohibitions  are  not  found  all  together,  but  one  tribe  may  hold 


140  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

to  several  of  them.     A  few  details  will  suffice  to  give  an  idea  of 
the  extent  and  variety  of  this  series  of  superstitions. 

The  intense  aversion  which  savages  have  from  uttering  their 
own  names,  has  often  been  noticed  hy  travellers.  Thus  Captain 
Mayne  says  of  the  Indians  of  British  Columbia,  that  "  one  of 
their  strangest  prejudices,  which  appears  to  pervade  all  tribes 
alike,  is  a  dislike  to  telling  their  names — thus  you  never  get  a 
man's  right  name  from  himself ;  but  they  will  tell  each  other's 
names  without  hesitation."1  So  Dobrizhoffer  says  that  the 
Abipones  of  South  America  think  it  a  sin  to  utter  their  own 
names,  and  when  a  man  was  asked  his  name,  he  would  nudge 
his  neighbour  to  answer  for  him,2  and  in  like  manner,  the 
Fijians  and  the  Sumatrans  are  described  as  looking  to  a  friend 
to  help  them  out  of  the  difficulty,  when  this  indiscreet  question 
is  put  to  them.3 

Nor  does  the  dislike  to  mentioning  ordinary  personal  names 
always  stop  at  this  limit.  Among  the  Algonquin  tribes, 
children  are  generally  named  by  the  old  woman  of  the  family, 
usually  with  reference  to  some  dream,  but  this  real  name  is 
kept  mysteriously  secret,  and  what  usually  passes  for  the  name 
is  a  mere  nickname,  such  as  "Little  Fox,"  or  "Bed-Head." 
The  real  name  is  hardly  ever  revealed  even  by  the  grave-post, 
but  the  totem  or  symbol  of  the  clan  is  held  sufficient.  The 
true  name  of  La  Belle  Sauvage  was  not  Pocahontas,  "  her  true 
name  was  Matokes,  which  they  concealed  from  the  English,  in 
a  superstitious  fear  of  hurt  by  the  English,  if  her  name  was 
known."4  "It  is  next  to  impossible  to  induce  an  Indian  to 
utter  personal  names;  the  utmost  he  will  do,  if  a  person  im- 
plicated is  present,  is  to  move  his  lips,  without  speaking,  in  the 
direction  of  the  person."  Schoolcraft  saw  an  Indian  in  a  court 
of  justice  pressed  to  identify  a  man  who  was  there,  but  all  they 
could  get  him  to  do  was  to  push  his  lips  towards  him.5  So 

1  Mayne,  'British  Columbia,'  etc.  ;  London,  1862,  p.  278. 

-  Dobrizhoffer,  vol.  ii.  p.  444.     See  also  Uullcn,  'Darien  Indians,'  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc. 
vol.  iv.  p.  265. 

3  Seemann,  'Viti ;'  London,  1862,  p.  190.     Marsden,  Hist,  of  Sumatra:  London, 
1811,  p.  2SH. 

4  Schoolcraft,  part  ii.  p   65. 

*  Id.  p.  433.     Sec  also  Burton,  'City  of  the  Saints,' p.  141. 


IMAGES  AND  NAMES.  141 

Mr.  Backhouse  describes  how  a  native  woman  of  Van  Diemen's 
Land  threw  sticks  at  a  friendly  Englishman,  who  in  his  igno- 
rance of  native  manners,  mentioned  her  son,  who  was  at  school 
at  Xewtown.1 

In  various  parts  of  the  world,  a  variety  of  remarkable  customs 
are  observed  between  men  and  women,  and  their  fathers-  and 
mothers-in-law.  These  will  be  noticed  elsewhere,  but  it  is 
necessary  to  mention  here,  that  among  the  Dayaks  of  Borneo,  a 
man  must  not  pronounce  the  name  of  his  father-in-law  ; 2  among 
the  Omahas  of  Xorth  America,  the  father-  and  molher-in-law  do 
not  speak  to  their  son-in-law,  or  mention  his  name,3  nor  do 
they  call  him  or  he  them  by  name  among  the  Dacotahs.4 
Again,  the  wife  is  in  some  places  prohibited  from  mentioning 
her  husband's  name.  "  A  Hindoo  wife  is  never,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, to  mention  the  name  of  her  husband.  '  He,'  '  The 
Master,'  '  Swainy,'  etc.,  are  titles  she  uses  when  speaking  of,  or 
to  her  lord.  In  no  way  can  one  of  the  sex  annoy  another  more 
intensely  and  bitterly,  than  by  charging  her  with  having  men- 
tioned her  husband's  name.  It  is  a  crime  not  easily  forgiven."  5 
In  East  Africa,  among  the  Barea,  the  wife  never  utters  the  name 
of  her  husband,  or  eats  in  his  presence,  and  even  among  the 
Beni  Amer,  where  the  women  have  extensive  privileges  and 
great  social  power,  the  wife  is  still  not  allowed  to  eat  in  the 
husband's  presence,  and  only  mentions  his  name  before  stran- 
gers.6 The  Kafir  custom  prohibits  wives  from  speaking  the  names 
of  relatives  of  their  husbands  and  fathers-in-law.  In  Australia, 
among  the  names  which  in  some  tribes  must  not  be  spoken,  are 
those  of  a  father-  or  mother-in-law,  of  a  son-in-law,  and  of 
persons  in  some  kind  of  connexion  by  marriage.  Another  of 
the  Australian  prohibitions  is  not  only  very  curious,  but  is 
curious  as  having  apparently  no  analogue  elsewhere.  Among 
certain  tribes  in  the  Murray  River  district,  the  youths  undergo, 
instead  of  circumcision,  an  operation  called  ipha/repin,  and  after- 
wards, the  natives  who  have  officiated,  and  those  who  have  been 

1  Backhouse,  'Australia,' p.  93. 

2  St.  John,  vol.  i.  p.  51.  *  Long's  Exp.,  vol.  L  p.  253. 

4  Schoolcraft,  part.  ii.  p.  196. 

5  F.  de  W.  Ward,  '  India  and  the  Hindoos  ; '  London,  1853,  p.  189. 

6  Munzinger,    '  Ostaf rikanische  Studien  ;'  Schaffhaustn,  1864,  pp.  325,  526. 


IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

operated  upon,  though  they  may  meet  and  talk,  must  never 
mention  one  another's  names,  nor  must  the  name  of  one  even 
be  spoken  by  a  third  person  in  the  presence  of  the  other.1 

It  is  especially  in  Eastern  Asia  and  Polynesia,  that  we  find 
the  names  of  kings  and  chiefs  held  as  sacred,  and  not  to  be 
lightly  spoken.  In  Siam,  the  king  must  be  spoken  of  by  some 
epithet ; 2  in  India  and  Burmah,  the  royal  name  is  avoided  as 
something  sacred  and  mysterious ;  and  in  Polynesia,  the  pro- 
hibition to  mention  chiefs'  names  has  even  impressed  itself 
deeply  in  the  language  of  the  islands  where  it  prevails.3 

But  it  is  among  the  most  distant  and  various  races  that  we 
find  one  class  of  names  avoided  with  mysterious  horror,  the 
names  of  the  dead.  In  North  America,  the  dead  is  to  be 
alluded  to,  not  mentioned  by  name,  especially  in  the  presence  of 
a  relative.4  In  South  America,  he  must  be  mentioned  among 
the  Abipones  as  "  the  man  who  does  not  now  exist,"  or  some 
such  periphrasis ; 5  and  the  Fuegians  have  a  horror  of  any  kind 
of  allusion  to  their  dead  friends,  and  when  a  child  asks  for  its 
dead  father  or  mother,  they  will  say,  "  Silence  !  don't  speak  bad 
words."6  The  Samoied  only  speaks  of  the  dead  by  allusion,  for 
it  would  disquiet  them  to  utter  their  names.7  The  Australians, 
like  the  North  Americans,  will  set  up  the  pictured  crest  or 
symbol  of  the  dead  man's  clan,  but  his  name  is  not  to  be 
spoken.  Dr.  Lang  tried  to  get  from  an  Australian  the  name 
of  a  native  who  had  been  killed.  "  He  told  me  who  the  lad's 
father  was,  who  was  his  brother,  what  he  was  like,  how  he 
walked  when  he  was  alive,  how  he  held  the  tomahawk  in  his 
left  hand  instead  of  his  right  (for  he  had  been  left-handed), 
and  with  whom  he  usually  associated ;  but  the  dreaded  name 
never  escaped  his  lips;  and  I  believe  no  promises  or  threats 
could  have  induced  him  to  utter  it."8  The  Papuans  of  the 
Eastern  Archipelago  avoid  speaking  the  names  of  the  dead, 

1  Eyre,  vol.  ii.  pp.  336-9.    The  wharepin  is  a  ceremonial  depilation. 

•  Bowring,  p.  £8.  s  Polack,  vol.  i.  p.  38. 
4  Simpson,  Journey,  vol.  i.  p.  130.     Schoolcraft,  part  iii.  p.  234. 

•  Dobrizhoffer,  vol.  ii.  p.  273. 

•  Despard,  'Fireland  '  ('  Sunday  at  Home,'  Oct.  31,  1863> 
1  Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  ii.  p.  226. 

8  Lang,  '  Queensland,'  pp.  367,  387.     Eyre,  L  C. 


IMAGES  AND   NAMES.  143 

and  in  Africa,  a  like  prejudice  is  found  among  the  Masai.1  In 
the  Old  World,  Pliny  says  of  the  Roman  custom,  "  Why,  when 
we  mention  the  dead,  do  we  declare  that  we  do  not  vex  their 
memory?"2  and  indeed,  the  superstition  is  still  to  be  found 
in  modern  Europe,  and  hetter  marked  than  in  ancient 
Rome ;  perhaps  nowhere  more  notably  than  in  Shetland, 
where  it  is  all  but  impossible  to  get  a  widow,  at  any  dis- 
tance of  time,  to  mention  the  name  of  her  dead  husband, 
though  she  will  talk  about  him  by  the  hour.  No  dead  person 
must  be  mentioned,  for  his  ghost  will  come  to  him  who  speaks 
his  name.3 

To  conclude  the  list,  the  dislike  to  mentioning  the  names  of 
spiritual  or  superhuman  beings,  and  everything  to  which  super- 
natural powers  are  ascribed,  is,  as  everyone  knows,  very  general. 
The  Dayak  will  not  speak  of  the  small-pox  by  name,  but  will 
call  it  "the  chief"  or  "jungle  leaves,"  or  say  "Has  he  left 
you?"4  The  euphemism  of  calling  the  Furies  the  Eumenides, 
or  'gracious  ones,'  is  the  stock  illustration  of  this  feeling,  and 
the  euphemisms  for  fairies  and  for  the  devil  are  too  familiar  to 
quote.  The  Yezidis,  who  worship  Satan,  have  a  horror  of  his 
name  being  mentioned.  The  Laplanders  will  call  the  bear  "  the 
old  man  with  the  fur  coat,"  but  they  do  not  like  to  mention  his 
name ;  and  East  Prussian  peasants  still  say  that  in  midwinter 
you  must  speak  of  the  wolf  as  "the  vermin,"  not  call  him  by 
name,  lest  werewolves  tear  you.5  In  Asia,  the  same  dislike  to 
speak  of  the  tiger  is  found  in  Siberia,  among  the  Tunguz ; 6  and 
in  Annam,  where  he  is  called  "  Grandfather"  or  "Lord,"7  while 
in  Sumatra,  they  are  spoken  of  as  the  "wild  animals"  or 
"  ancestors."8  The  name  of  Brahma  is  a  sacred  thing  in  India, 
as  that  of  Jehovah  is  to  the  Jews,  not  to  be  uttered  but  on 
solemn  occasions.  The  Moslem,  it  is  true,  has  the  name  of 

1  Bastian,  vol.  ii.  p.  276.  etc.     See  also  Fontana,  '  Nicobarls.'  in  As.  Res.,  voL  iii. 
p.  154.     Callaway,  'Religion  of  Amazulu,' p.  169. 

2  Plin. ,  xxviii.  5. 

3  Mrs.  Edniondston,  '  Shetland  Islands  ;'  Edin.  1856,  p.  20. 

4  St.  John,  vol.  i.  p.  62. 

6  Wuttke,  p.  118.     See  also  Grimm,  D.  M.,  p.  633,  1213. 

6  Ravenstein,  p.  382. 

"»   Mouhot,  'Travels  in  Indo-China,'  etc.  ;  London,  1864,  vol.  i.  p.  263. 

*  Aiurhdtn,  p.  2['2. 


144  IMAGES  AND  NAMES. 

Allah  for  ever  on  his  lips,  but  this,  as  has  been  mentioned,  is 
only  an  epithet,  not  the  "  great  name." 

Among  this  series  of  prohibitions,  several  cases  seem,  like  the 
burning  in  effigy  among  the  practices  with  images,  to  fall  into 
mere  association  of  ideas,  devoid  of  any  superstitious  thought. 
The  names  of  husbands,  of  chiefs,  of  supernatural  beings,  or  of 
the  dead,  may  be  avoided  from  an  objection  to  liberties  being 
taken  with  the  property  of  a  superior,  from  a  dislike  to  associate 
names  of  what  is  sacred  with  common  life,  or  to  revive  hateful 
thoughts  of  death  and  sorrow.  But  in  other  instances,  the 
notion  comes  out  with  great  clearness,  that  the  mere  speaking  of 
a  name  acts  upon  its  owner,  whether  that  owner  be  man,  beast, 
or  spirit,  whether  near  or  far  off.  Sometimes  it  may  be  ex- 
plained by  considering  supernatural  creatures  as  having  the 
power  of  hearing  their  names  wherever  they  are  uttered,  and  as 
sometimes  coming  to  trouble  the  living  when  they  are  thus 
disturbed.  Where  this  is  an  accepted  belief,  such  sayings  as 
"  Talk  of  the  Devil  and  you  see  his  horns,"  "Parlez  du  Loup," 
etc.,  have  a  far  more  serious  meaning  than  they  bear  to  us  now. 
Thus  an  aged  Indian  of  Lake  Michigan  explained  why  the 
native  wonder-tales  must  only  be  told  in  the  winter,  for  then 
the  deep  snow  lies  on  the  ground,  and  the  thick  ice  covers  up 
the  waters,  and  so  the  spirits  that  dwell  there  cannot  hear  the 
laughter  of  the  crowd  listening  to  their  stories  round  the  fire  in 
the  winter  lodge.  But  in  spring  the  spirit-world  is  all  alive,  and 
the  hunter  never  alludes  to  the  spirits  but  in  a  sedate,  reverent 
way,  careful  lest  the  slightest  word  should  give  offence.1  In 
other  cases,  however,  the  effect  of  the  utterance  of  the  name  on 
the  name's  owner  would  seem  to  be  different  from  this.  The 
explanation  does  not  hold  in  the  case  of  a  man  refusing  to  sp.'ak 
his  own  name,  nor  would  he  be  likely  to  think  that  his  mother- 
in-law  could  hear  Avhenever  he  mentioned  hers. 

Some  of  these  prohibitions  of  names  have  caused  a  very 
curious  phenomenon  in  language.  "When  the  prohibited  name 
is  a  word  in  use,  and  often  when  it  is  only  something  like  such 
a  word,  that  word  has  to  be  dropped  and  a  new  one  found  to 
take  its  place.  Several  languages  are  known  to  have  been 
1  Schoolcraft,  part  iii.  pp.  314,  492. 


IMAGES   AND   NAMES.  l-!5 

specially  affectod  by  this  proceeding,  and  it  is  to  be  remarked 
that  in  them  r.ne  causes  o^  prohibition  have  been  different.  In 
the  South  Sea  Islands,  words  have  been  tabued,  from  connexion 
with  the  names  of  chiefs ;  in  Australia,  Van  Diemen's  Land, 
and  among  the  Abipones  of  South  America,  from  connexion 
with  the  names  of  the  dead ;  while  in  South  Africa,  the  avoid- 
ance of  the  names  of  certain  relatives  by  marriage  has  led  to  a 
result  in  some  degree  similar. 

Captain  Cook  noticed  in  Tahiti  that  when  a  chief  came  to  the 
royal  dignity,  any  words  resembling  his  name  were  changed. 
Even  to  call  a  horse  or  a  dog  "  Prince  "  or  "  Princess,"  was 
disgusting  to  the  native  mind.1  Polack  says  that  from  a  New 
Zealand  chief  being  called  "  Wai,"  which  means  "  water,"  a 
new  name  had  to  be  given  to  water.  A  chief  was  called  "  Ma- 
ripi,"  or  "knife;"  and  knives  were  called,  in  consequence,  by 
another  name,  "nekra."2  Hale,  the  philologist  to  the  U.  S. 
Exploring  Expedition,  gives  an  account  of  the  similar  Tahitian 
practice  known  as  te  pi,  by  virtue  of  which,  for  instance,  the 
syllable  tu  was  changed  even  in  indifferent  words,  because  there 
was  a  king  whose  name  was  Tu.  Thus  fetu  (star)  was  changed 
to  fctia,  tui  (to  strike)  became  tiai,  and  so  on.3 

Mentioning  the  Australian  prohibition  of  uttering  the  names 
of  the  dead,  Mr.  Eyre  says : — "  In  cases  where  the  name  of  a 
native  has  been  that  of  some  bird  or  animal  of  almost  daily 
recurrence,  a  new  name  is  given  to  the  object,  and  adopted  in  the 
language  of  the  tribe.  Thus  at  Moorunde,  a  favourite  son  of 
the  native  Tenberry  was  called  Torpool,  or  the  Teal ;  upon  the 
child's  death  the  appellation  of  tilquaitch  was  given  to  the  teal, 
and  that  of  torpool  altogether  dropped  among  the  Moorunde 
tribe."4  The  change  of  language  in  Tasmania,  which  has 
resulted  from  dropping  the  names  of  the  dead,  is  thus  described 
by  Mr.  Milligan : — "The  elision  and  absolute  rejection  and 
disuse  of  words  from  time  to  time  has  been  noticed  as  a  source 
of  change  in  the  Aboriginal  dialects.  It  happened  thus  : — The 

1  Cook,  Third  Voyage,  vol.  ii.  p.  170. 

2  Polack,  vol.  i.  p.  38  (mikara?) ;  vol.  ii.  p.  126. 

3  Hale,   in  U.  S.   Exp.,  vol.    vi.  p.    238.     Max  Miiller,    'Lectures,'  2nd  series ; 
London,  1864,  pp.  34-41.     Tyerinan  and  liennet,  voL  ii.  p.  520. 

4  Eyre,  voL  ii.  p.  354. 

I 


146  DIAGES  AND  NAMES. 

names  of  men  and  women  were  taken  from  natural  objects  and 
occurrences  around,  as,  for  instance,  a  kangaroo,  a  gum-tree, 
snow,  bail,  tbunder,  tbe  wind,  tbe  sea,  tbe  Waratah — or  Blandi- 
fordia  or  Boronia  wben  in/  blossom,  etc.,  but  it  was  a  settled 
custom  in  every  tribe,  upon  the  death  of  any  individual,  most 
scrupulously  to  abstain  ever  after  from  mentioning  the  name  of 
the  deceased, — a  rule,  the  infraction  of  which  would,  they  con- 
sidered, be  followed  by  some  dire  calamities :  they  therefore 
used  great  circumlocution  in  referring  to  a  dead  person,  so  as  to 
avoid  pronunciation  of  the  name, — if,  for  instance,  William  and 
Mary,  man  and  wife,  were  both  deceased,  and  Lucy,  the  deceased 
sister  of  William,  had  been  married  to  Isaac,  also  dead,  whose 
son  Jemmy  still  survived,  and  they  wished  to  speak  of  Mary, 
they  would  say  '  the  wife  of  the  brother  of  Jemmy's  father's 
wife,'  and  so  on.  Such  a  practice  must,  it  is  clear,  have  con- 
tributed materially  to  reduce  the  number  of  their  substantive 
appellations,  and  to  create  a  necessity  for  new  phonetic  symbols 
to  represent  old  ideas,  which  new  vocables  would  in  all  probabi- 
lity differ  on  each  occasion,  and  in  every  separate  tribe  ;  the  only 
chance  of  fusion  of  words  between  tribes  arising  out  of  the 
capture  of  females  for  wives  from  hostile  and  alien  people, — a 
custom  generally  prevalent,  and  doubtless  as  beneficial  to  the 
race  in  its  effects  as  it  was  savage  in  its  mode  of  execution."1 

Martin  Dobrizhoffer,  the  Jesuit  missionary,  gives  the  following 
account  of  the  way  in  which  this  change  was  going  on  in  the 
language  of  the  Abipones  in  his  time.  "  The  Abiponian  lan- 
guage is  involved  in  new  difficulties  by  a  ridiculous  custom 
which  the  savages  have  of  continually  abolishing  words  common 
to  the  whole  nation,  and  substituting  new  ones  in  their  stead. 
Funeral  rites  are  the  origin  of  this  custom.  The  Abipones  do 
not  like  that  anything  should  remain  to  remind  them  of  the 
dead.  Hence  appellative  words  bearing  any  affinity  with  the 
names  of  the  deceased  are  presently  abolished.  During  the 
first  years  that  I  spent  amongst  the  Abipones,  it  was  usual  to 
say  Hegmalkam  kahamdtek  I  '  When  will  there  be  a  slaughter- 
ing of  oxen  ?'  On  account  of  the  death  of  some  Abipone,  the 

1  Milligan,   in  Papers,   etc.,  of  Roy.   Soc.   of  Tasmania,  vol.  iii.   part  ii.  1859, 
p.  281. 


IMAGES  AND   NAMES.  147 

word  kahamdtek  was  interdicted,  and,  in  its  stead,  they  were  all 
commanded,  by  the  voice  of  a  crier,  to  say,  Hegmalkam  neger- 
katd  ?  The  word  nihirenak,  a  tiger,  was  exchanged  for  apanige- 
hnk ;  pciie,  a  crocodile,  for  kaeprhak,  and  kadma,  Spaniards,  for 
liikil,  because  these  words  bore  some  resemblance  to  the  names 
of  Abipones  lately  deceased.  Hence  it  is  that  our  vocabularies 
are  so  full  of  blots,  occasioned  by  our  having  such  frequent 
occasion  to  obliterate  interdicted  words,  and  insert  new  ones."1 

In  South  Africa,  it  appears  that  some  Kafir  tribes  drop  from 
their  language  words  resembling  the  names  of  their  former  chiefs. 
Thus  the  Ama-Mbalu  do  not  call  the  sun  by  its  ordinary  Zulu 
name  i-langa,  but  their  first  chief's  name  having  been  Ulanga, 
they  use  the  word  i-sota  instead.  It  is  also  among  the  Kafirs 
that  the  peculiar  custom  of  uku-hlonipa  is  found,  which  is  re- 
marked upon  by  Professor  Max  Miiller  in  his  second  course  of 
lectures.2  The  following  account  of  it  is  from  another  source, 
the  Rev.  J.  L.  Dohne,  who  thus  speaks  of  it  under  the  verb 
Idonipa,  which  means  to  be  bashful,  to  keep  at  a  distance  through 
timidity,  to  shun  approach,  to  avoid  mentioning  one's  name,  to 
be  respectful.  "This  word  describes  a  custom  between  the  nearest 
relations,  and  is  exclusively  applied  to  the  female  sex,  who,  when 
married,  are  not  allowed  to  call  the  names  of  the  relatives  of  their 
husbands  nor  of  their  fathers-in-law.  They  must  keep  at  a  dis- 
tance from  the  latter.  Hence  they  have  the  habit  of  inventing 
new  names  for  the  members  of  the  family,  which  is  always  re- 
sorted to  when  those  names  happen  to  be  either  derived  from,  or 
are  equivalent  to  some  other  word  of  the  common  language,  as, 
for  instance,  if  the  father  or  brother-in-law  is  called  Umehlo, 
which  is  derived  from  amehlo,  eyes,  the  isifazi  [female  sex]  will 
no  longer  use  amehlo  but  substitute  amakangelo  (lookings),  etc., 
and  hence,  the  izwi  lezifazi,  i.e. :  women-word  or  language,  has 
originated."3 

Other  instances  of  change  of  language  by  interdicting  words 
are  to  be  found.  The  Yezidis,  who  worship  the  devil,  not  only 
refuse  to  speak  the  name  of  Sheitan,  but  they  have  dropped  the 

1  Dobrizhoffer,  vol.  ii.  p.  203.  "  Max  Miiller,  I.  e. 

1  Dohne,  '  Zulu-Kafir  Dictionary  ; '  Cape  Town,  1857,  s.  v.  ttonipa.  See  Bastian, 
'RechtsveT-haltnisse,'  p.  352  (name  of  King  of  Wadai). 

L  2 


143  DIAGES  AXD  NAMES. 

word  shat,  "  river,"  as  too  much  like  it,  and  use  the  word  nalir 
instead.  Nor  will  they  utter  the  word  keitan,  "thread,"  or 
"  fringe,"  and  even  naal,  "horse-shoe,"  and  naal-band,  "farrier," 
are  forbidden  words,  because  they  approach  to  laan,  "  curse," 
and  maloun,  "accursed."1  It  is  curious  to  observe  that  a 
"  disease  of  language  "  belonging  to  the  same  family  has  shown 
itself  in  English  speaking  countries  and  in  modern  times.  In 
America  especially,  a  number  of  very  harmless  words  have  been 
"tabooed  "  of  late  years,  not  for  any  offence  of  their  own,  but 
for  having  a  resemblance  in  sound  to  words  looked  upon  as  in- 
delicate, or  even  because  slang  has  adopted  them  to  express 
ideas  ignored  by  a  somewhat  over-fastidious  propriety.  "SVe  in 
England  are  not  wholly  clear  from  this  offence  against  good 
taste,  but  we  have  been  fortunate  in  seeing  it  developed  into  its 
fall  ugliness  abroad,  and  may  hope  that  it  is  checked  once  for  all 
among  ourselves. 

It  may  be  said  in  concluding  the  subject  of  Images  and  Names, 
that  the  effect  of  an  inability  to  separate,  so  clearly  as  we  do,  the 
external  object  from  the  mere  thought  or  idea  of  it  in  the  mind, 
shows  itself  very  fully  and  clearly  in  the  superstitious  beliefs  and 
practices  of  the  untaught  man,  but  its  results  are  by  no  means 
confined  to  such  matters.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  nothing 
short  of  a  history  of  Philosophy  and  Religion  would  be  required 
to  follow  them  out.  The  accumulated  experience  of  so  many 
ages  has  indeed  brought  to  us  far  clearer  views  in  these  matters 
than  the  savage  has,  though  after  all  we  soon  come  to  the  point 
where  our  knowledge  stops,  and  the  opinions  which  ordinary 
educated  men  hold,  or  at  least  act  upon,  as  to  the  relation 
between  ideas  and  things,  may  come  in  time  to  be  superseded 
by  others  taken  from  a  higher  level.  But  between  our  clearness 
of  separation  of  what  is  in  the  mind  from  what  is  out  of  it,  and 
the  mental  confusion  of  the  lowest  savages  of  our  own  day,  there 
is  a  vast  interval.  Moreover,  as  has  just  been  said,  the  appear- 
ance even  in  the  system  of  savage  superstition,  of  things  which 
seem  to  have  outlived  the  recollection  of  their  original  meaning, 
may  perhaps  lead  us  back  to  a  still  earlier  condition  of  the  human 
mind.  Especially  we  may  see,  in  the  superstitions  connected 

1  Layard,  '  Ninereh  ; '  London,  1849,  ToL  i  p.  297. 


IMAGES  AXD  NAMES.  1-19 

with  language,  the  vast  difference  between  what  a  name  is  to  the 
savage  and  what  it  is  to  us,  to  whom  "  words  are  the  counters 
of  wise  men  and  the  money  of  fools."  Lower  down  in  the  history 
of  culture,  the  word  and  the  idea  are  found  sticking  together 
with  a  tenacity  very  different  from  their  weak  adhesion  in  our 
minds,  and  there  is  to  be  seen  a  tendency  to  grasp  at  the  word 
as  though  it  were  the  object  it  stands  for,  and  to  hold  that  to  be 
able  to  speak  of  a  thing  gives  a  sort  of  possession  of  it,  in  a  way 
that  we  can  scarcely  realize.  Perhaps  this  state  of  mind  was 
hardly  ever  so  clearly  brought  into  view  as  in  a  story  told  by  Dr, 
Lieber.  "  I  was  looking  lately  at  a  negro  who  was  occupied  in 
feeding  young  mocking-birds  by  the  hand.  '  Would  they  eat 
worms  ? '  I  asked.  The  negro  replied,  '  Surely  not,  they  are  too 
young,  they  would  not  know  what  to  call  them.'  "  l 

*  Lieber,  'Laura  Brid^man  ;'  Smithsonian  C.,  1851,  p.  9. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

DIRECT  record  is  the  mainstay  of  History,  and  where  this  fails 
us  in  remote  places  and  times,  it  becomes  much  more  difficult 
to  make  out  where  civilization  has  gone  forward,  and  where  it 
has  fallen  back.  As  to  progress  in  the  first  place ;  when  any 
important  movement  has  been  made  in  modern  times,  there  have 
usually  been  well-informed  contemporary  writers,  only  too  glad 
to  come  before  the  public  with  something  to  say  that  the  world 
cared  to  hear.  But  in  going  down  to  the  lower  levels  of  traditional 
history,  this  state  of  things  changes.  It  is  not  only  that  real  in- 
formation becomes  more  and  more  scarce,  but  that  the  same 
curiosity  that  we  feel  about  the  origin  and  growth  of  civilization, 
unfortunately  combined  with  a  disposition  to  take  any  semblance 
of  an  answer  rather  than  live  in  face  of  mere  blank  conscious 
ignorance,  has  favoured  the  growth  of  the  crowd  of  mythic  in- 
ventors and  civilizers,  who  have  their  place  in  the  legends  of  so 
many  distant  ages  and  countries.  Their  stories  often  give  us 
names,  dates,  and  places,  even  the  causes  which  led  to  change,— 
just  the  information  wanted,  if  only  it  were  true.  And,  indeed, 
recollections  of  real  men  and  their  inventions  may  sometimes 
have  come  to  be  included  among  the  tales  of  these  gods,  heroes, 
and  sages ;  and  sometimes  a  mythic  garb  may  clothe  real  history, 
as  when  Cadmus,  mp,  "The  East,"  brings  the  Phoenician  letters 
to  Greece.  But,  as  a  rule,  not  history,  but  mythology  fallen 
cold  and  dead,  or  even  etymology,  allusion,  fancy,  are  their  only 
basis,  from  Sol  the  son  of  Oceanus,  who  found  out  how  to  mine 
and  melt  the  brilliant  sun-like  gold,  and  Pyrodes,  the  "  Fiery," 
who  discovered  how  to  get  fire  from  flint,  and  the  merchants 
who  invented  the  art  of  glass-making  (known  in  Egypt  in  such 


GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE.  151 

remote  antiquity)  by  making  fires  on  the  sandy  Phoenician  coast, 
with  their  kettles  set  to  boil  over  them  on  lumps  of  natron, 
brought  for  this  likely  purpose  from  their  ship, — across  the 
world  to  Kahukura,  who  got  the  fairies'  fishing-net  from  which 
the  New  Zealanders  learnt  the  art  of  netting,  and  the  Chinese 
pair,  Hoei  and  Y-meu,  of  whom  the  one  invented  the  bow,  and 
the  other  the  arrow. 

As  the  gods  Ceres  and  Bacchus  become  the  givers  of  corn  and 
wine  to  mortals,  so  across  the  Atlantic  there  has  grown  out  of 
a  simple  mythic  conception  of  nature,  the  story  of  the  great 
onlightener  and  civilizer  of  Mexico.  When  the  key  which 
Professor  Miiller  and  Mr.  Cox  have  used  with  such  success  in 
unlocking  the  Indo-European  mythology  is  put  to  the  mass  of 
traditions  of  the  Mexican  Quetzalcohuatl,  collected  by  the  Abbd 
Brasseur,1  the  real  nature  of  this  personage  shows  out  at  once. 

He  was  the  son  of  Camaxtli,  the  great  Toltec  conqueror  who 
reigned  over  the  land  of  Analmac.  His  mother  died  at  hia 
birth,  and  in  his  childhood  he  was  cared  for  by  the  virgin 
priestesses  who  kept  up  the  sacred  fire,  emblem  of  the  sun. 
While  yet  a  boy  he  was  bold  in  war,  and  followed  his  father  on 
his  marches.  But  while  he  was  far  away,  a  band  of  enemies 
rose  against  his  father,  and  with  them  joined  the  Mixcohuas, 
the  "  Cloud- Snakes,"  and  they  fell  upon  the  aged  king  and 
choked  him,  and  buried  his  body  in  the  temple  of  Mixcoatepetl, 
the  "Mountain  of  the  Cloud- Snakes."  Time  passed  on,  and 
Quetzalcohuatl  knew  not  what  had  happened,  but  at  last  the 
Eagle  came  to  him  and  told  him  that  his  father  was  slain  and 
had  gone  down  into  the  tomb.  Then  Quetzalcohuatl  rose  and 
went  with  his  followers  to  attack  the  temple  of  the  Cloud- 
Snakes'  Mountain,  where  the  murderers  had  fortified  them- 
selves, mocking  him  from  their  battlements.  But  he  mined  in 
a  way  from  below,  and  rushed  into  the  temple  among  them  with 
his  Tigers.  Many  he  slew  outright,  but  the  bodies  of  the 
guiltiest  he  hewed  and  hacked,  and  throwing  red  pepper  on  their 
wounds,  left  them  to  die. 

After   this   there   comes   another  story.     Quetzalcohuatl  ap- 

1  Brasseur,    'Hist,   du  Mexique,'  vol.  i.  books  ii.   and  iii.     See  voL  iii.  book  lii. 
chapter  iii. 


l.->2  GROWTH  AND   DECLINE  OF   CULTURE. 

peared  at  Panuco,  up  a  river  on  the  Eastern  Coast.  He  had 
lauded  there  from  his  ship,  coming  no  man  knew  from  whence. 
He  was  tall,  of  white  complexion,  pleasant  to  look  upon,  with 
fair  hair  and  bushy  heard,  dressed  in  long  flowing  robes.  Re- 
ceived ever,  where  as  a  messenger  from  heaven,  he  travelled 
inland  across  the  hot  countries  of  the  coast  to  the  temperate 
regions  of  the  interior,  and  there  he  became  a  priest,  a  law- 
giver, and  a  king.  The  beautiful  land  of  the  Toltecs  teemed 
with  fruit  and  flowers,  and  his  reign  was  their  Golden  Age. 
Poverty  was  unknown,  and  the  people  revelled  in  every  joy  of 
riches  and  well-being.  The  Toltecs  themselves  were  not  like 
the  small  dark  Aztecs  of  later  times ;  they  were  large  of  stature 
and  fair  almost  as  Europeans,  and  (sun-like)  they  could  run 
unresting  all  the  long  day.  Quetzalcohuatl  brought  with  him 
builders,  painters,  astronomers,  and  artists  in  many  other  crafts. 
He  made  roads  for  travel,  and  favoured  the  wayfaring  merchants 
from  distant  lands.  He  was  the  founder  of  history,  the  law- 
giver, the  inventor  of  the  calendar  of  days  and  years,  the 
composer  of  the  Tonalamatl,  the  "  Sun-Book,"  where  the  Ton- 
alpouhqui,  "he  who  counts  by  the  sun,"  read  the  destinies  of 
men  in  astrological  predictions,  and  he  regulated  the  times  of 
the  solemn  ceremonies,  the  festival  of  the  new  year  and  of  the 
fifty-two  years'  cycle.  But  after  a  reign  of  years  of  peace  aiul 
prosperity,  trouble  came  upon  him  too.  His  enemies  banded 
themselves  against  him,  and  their  head  was  a  chief  who  bore  a 
name  of  the  Sun,  Tetzcatlipoca,  the  "  Smoking  mirror,"  a 
splendid  youth,  a  kinsman  of  Quetzalcohuatl,  but  his  bitter 
enemy.  They  rose  against  Quetzalcohuatl,  and  he  departed. 
The  kingdom,  he  said,  was  no  longer  under  his  charge,  he  had 
a  mission  elsewhere,  for  the  master  of  distant  lands  had  sent  to 
seek  him,  and  this  master  was  the  Sun.  He  went  to  Cholullan, 
"  the  place  of  the  fugitive,"  and  founded  there  another  empire, 
but  his  enemy  followed  him  with  his  armies,  and  Quetzalcohuatl 
said  he  must  be  gone  to  the  land  of  Tlapallan,  for  Heaven  willed 
that  he  should  visit  other  countries,  to  spread  there  the  light  of 
his  doctrine  ;  but  when  his  mission  was  done,  he  would  return 
and  spend  his  old  age  with  them.  So  he  departed  and  went 
down  a  river  on  his  ship  to  the  sea,  and  there  he  disappeared. 


GROWTH   AND   DECLINE   OF  CULTURE.  153 

The  sunlight  glows  on  the  snow-covered  peak  of  Orizaba  long 
after  the  lands  below  are  wrapped  in  darkness,  and  there,  some 
said,  his  body  was  carried,  and  rose  to  heaven  in  the  smoke  of 
the  funeral  pile,  and  when  he  vanished,  the  sun  for  a  time 
refused  to  show  himself  again. 

How  dim  the  meaning  of  these  tales  had  grown  among  the 
Mexicans,  when  Montezuma  thought  he  saw  in  Cortes  and  the 
Spanish  ships  the  return  of  the  great  ruler  and  his  age  of  goM. 
Quetzalcohuatl  had  come  back  already  many  a  time,  to  bring 
light,  and  joy,  and  work,  upon  the  earth,  for  he  was  the  Sun.1 
We  may  even  find  him  identified  with  the  Sun  by  name,  and 
his  history  is  perhaps  a  more  compact  and  perfect  series  of  solar 
myths  than  hangs  to  the  name  of  any  single  personage  in  our 
own  Aryan  mythology.  His  mother,  the  Dawn  or  the  Night, 
gives  birth  to  him,  and  dies.  His  father  Carnaxtli  is  the  Sun, 
and  was  worshipped  with  Solar  rites  in  Mexico,  but  he  is  the 
old  Sun  of  yesterday.  The  clouds,  personified  in  the  mythic 
race  of  the  Mixcohuas,  or  "  Cloud-Snakes  "  (the  Xibelungs  of 
the  western  hemisphere),  bear  down  the  old  Sun  and  choke  him, 
and  bury  him  in  their  mountain.  But  the  young  Quetzalcohuatl, 
the  Sun  of  to-day,  rushes  up  into  the  midst  of  them  from  below, 
and  some  he  slays  at  the  first  onset,  and  some  he  leaves,  rift 
with  red  wounds,  to  die.  We  have  the  Sun-boat  of  Helios,  of 
the  Egyptian  Ra,  of  the  Polynesian  Maui.  Quetzalcohuatl,  his 
bright  career  drawing  towards  its  close,  is  chased  into  far  lands 
by  his  kinsman  Tetzcatlipoca,  the  young  Sun  of  to-morrow. 
He,  too,  is  well-known  as  a  Sun-god  in  the  Mexican  theology. 
Wonderfully  fitting  with  all  this,  one  incident  after  another  in 
the  life  of  Quetzalcohuatl  falls  into  its  place.  The  guardians  of 
the  sacred  fire  tend  him,  his  funeral  pile  is  on  the  top  of  Orizaba, 
he  is  the  helper  of  travellers,  the  maker  of  the  calendar,  the 
source  of  astrology,  the  beginner  of  history,  the  bringer  of 
wealth  and  happiness.  He  is  the  patron  of  the  craftsman,  whom 
he  lights  to  his  labour ;  as  it  is  written  in  an  ancient  Sanskrit 
hymn,  "  He  steps  forth,  the  splendour  of  the  sky,  the  wide-see- 

1  The  author,  after  ten  years'  more  experience,  -would  now  rather  say  more  cautiously 
not  that  Quetzalcohuatl  is  the  Sun  personified,  but  that  his  story  contains  episode* 
seemingly  ?rawn  from  sun-myth.  [Xote  to  3rd  edition.] 


154  GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

ing,  the  far-aiming,  the  shining  wanderer ;  surely,  enlivened  by 
the  sun*  do  men  go  to  their  tasks  and  do  their  work."1  Even 
his  people  the  Toltecs  catch  from  him  solar  qualities.  Will  it 
be  even  possible  to  grant  to  this  famous  race,  in  whose  story  the 
legend  of  Quetzalcohuatl  is  the  leading  incident,  anything  more 
than  a  mythic  existence  ? 

The  student,  then,  may  well  look  suspiciously  on  statements 
professing  to  be  direct  history  of  the  early  growth  of  civilization, 
and  may  even  find  it  best  to  err  on  the  safe  side  and  not  admit 
them  at  all,  unless  they  are  shown  to  be  probable  by  other 
evidence,  or  unless  the  tradition  is  of  such  a  character  that  it 
could  hardly  have  arisen  but  on  a  basis  of  fact.  For  instance, 
both  these  tests  seem  to  be  satisfied  by  the  Chinese  legend 
concerning  quipus.  In  the  times  of  Yung-ching-che,  it  is 
related,  people  used  little  cords  marked  by  different  knots, 
which,  by  their  numbers  and  distances,  served  them  instead  of 
writing.  The  invention  is  ascribed  to  the  Emperor  Suy-jin,  the 
Prometheus  of  China.2  Putting  names  and  dates  out  of  the 
question,  this  story  embodies  the  assertion  that  in  old  times  the 
Chinese  used  quipus  for  records,  till  they  were  superseded  by 
the  art  of  writing.  Now  in  the  first  place,  it  is  not  easy  to 
imagine  how  such  a  story  could  come  into  existence,  unless 
it  were  founded  on  fact ;  and  in  the  second  place,  an  examina- 
tion of  what  is  known  of  this  curious  art  in  other  countries, 
shows  that  just  what  the  Chinese  say  once  happened  to  them,  is 
known  to  have  happened  to  other  races  in  various  parts  of  the 
world. 

The  quipu  is  a  near  relation  of  the  rosary  and  the  wampum- 
string.  It  consists  of  a  cord  with  knots  tied  in  it  for  the  pur- 
pose of  recalling  or  suggesting  something  to  the  mind.  When 
a  farmer's  daughter  ties  a  knot  in  her  handkerchief  to  remember 
a  commission  at  market  by,  she  makes  a  rudimentary  quipu. 
Darius  made  one  when  he  took  a  thong  and  tied  sixty  knots  in 
it,  and  .gave  it  to  the  chiefs  of  the  lonians,  that  they  might 
untie  a  knot  each  day,  till,  if  the  knots  were  all  undone,  and  he 

1  Miiller,  'Lectures,'  2nd  series,  p.  497. 

5  Goguet,  vol.  iii.  p.  322.     De  Mailla,  'Histoire  Ge*n.  de  la  Chine  ;'  Paris,  1777, 
vol.  i.  p.  4. 


GROWTH  AXD   DEC'LINE  OF  CULTURE.  155 

had  not  returned,  they  might  go  back  to  their  own  land.1  Such 
was  the  string  on  which  Le  Boo  tied  a  knot  for  each  ship  he 
met  on  his  voyage,  to  keep  in  mind  its  name  and  country,  and 
that  one  on  which  his  father,  Abba  Thulle,  tied  first  thirty 
knots,  and  then  six  more,  to  remember  that  Captain  Wilson  was 
to  come  back  in  thirty  moons,  or  at  least  in  six  beyond.2 

This  is  so  simple  a  device  that  it  may,  for  all  we  know,  have 
been  invented  again  and  again,  and  its  appearance  in  several 
countries  does  not  necessarily  prove  it  to  have  been  transmitted 
from  one  country  to  another.  It  has  been  found  in  Asia,3  in 
Africa,4  in  Mexico,  among  the  North  American  Indians ; 5  but 
its  greatest  development  was  in  South  America.6  The  word 
quipu,  that  is,  "knot,"  belongs  to  the  language  of  Peru,  and 
quipus  served  there  as  the  regular  means  of  record  and  commu- 
nication for  a  highly  organized  society.  Von  Tschudi  describes 
them  as  consisting  of  a  thick  main  cord,  with  thinner  cords  tied 
on  to  it  at  certain  distances,  in  which  the  knots  are  tied.  The 
length  of  the  quipus  varies  much,  the  main  trunk  being  often 
many  ells  long,  sometimes  only  a  single  foot,  the  branches 
seldom  more  than  two  feet,  and  usually  much  less.  He  has 
dug  up  a  quipu,  he  says,  towards  eight  pounds  in  weight,  a 
portion  of  which  is  represented  in  the  woodcut  from  which  the 
accompanying  (Fig.  15)  is  taken.  The  cords  are  often  of 
various  colours,  each  with  its  own  proper  meaning ;  red  for 
soldiers,  yellow  for  gold,  white  for  silver,  green  for  corn,  and  so 
on.  This  knot- writing  was  especially  suited  for  reckonings  and 
statistical  tables;  a  single  knot  meant  ten,  a  double  one  a 
hundred,  a  triple  one  a  thousand,  two  singles  side  by  side 
twenty,  two  doubles  two  hundred.  The  distances  of  the  knots 

1  Herod.,  iv.  98.     See  Plin.,  x.  34.     Bastian,  vol.  i.  p.  415. 

2  Keate,  '  Pelew  Islands  ;'  London,  1788,  pp.  367,  392. 

3  Erman  (E.  Tr.) ;    London,   1848,   vol.  i.  p.  492.     Macpherson,  'Memorials  of 
India,'  p.  359.     As.  Res.  vol.  iv.  p.  64,  vol.   v.  p.  127.     Journ.  lud.  Archip.  vol.  i. 
pp.  260,  330*. 

4  Goguet,  vol.  i.  pp.   161,   212.      Klemm.   C.   G.,  vol.  i.   p.  3.     Bastian,  voL  L 
p.  412. 

5  Charlevoix,  vol.  vi.  p.  151.     Long's  Exp.,  vol.  i.  p.  235  (a  passage  which  sug- 
gests a  reason  for  Lucina  being  the  patroness  of   child-birth).      Talbot,  Disc,    of 
Lederer,  p.  4 

6  Humboldt  and  Bonpland,  vol.  iii.  p.  20.     Rochefc--t,  p.  412. 


J56  GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

from  the  main  cord  were  of  great  importance,  as  was  the 
sequence  of  the  branches,  for  the  principal  objects  were  placed 
on  the  first  branches  and  near  the  trunk,  and  so  in  decreasing 
order.  This  art  of  reckoning,  continues  Von  Tschudi,  is  still  iri 


Fig.  15. 


use  among  the  herdsmen  of  the  Puna  (the  high  mountain 
flateau  of  Peru),  and  he  had  it  explained  to  him  by  them,  so 
that  with  a  little  trouble  he  could  read  any  of  their  quipus.  On 
the  first  branch  they  usually  register  the  bulls,  on  the  second 
the  cows,  these  again  they  divide  into  milch-cows  and  those 
that  are  dry;  the  next  branches  contain  the  calves,  according 


GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE.  157 

to  age  and  sex,  then  the  sheep  in  several  subdivisions,  the 
number  of  foxes  killed,  the  quantity  of  salt  used,  and,  lastly, 
the  particulars  of  the  cattle  that  have  died.  On  other  quipus  is 
set  down  the  produce  of  the  herd  in  milk,  cheese,  wool,  etc. 
Each  heading  is  indicated  by  a  special  colour  or  a  differently 
twined  knot. 

It  was  in  the  same  way  that  in  old  times  the  army  registers 
were  kept ;  on  one  cord  the  slingers  were  set  down,  on  another 
the  spearmen,  on  a  third  those  with  clubs,  etc.,  with  their 
officers ;  and  thus  also  the  accounts  of  battles  were  drawn  up. 
In  each  town  were  special  functionaries,  whose  duty  was  to  tie 
and  interpret  the  quipus;  they  were  called  Quipucamayocuna, 
Knot-officers.  Insufficient  as  this  kind  of  writing  was,  the 
official  historians  had  attained,  during  the  flourishing  of  the 
kingdom  of  the  Incas,  to  great  facility  in  its  interpretation. 
Nevertheless,  they  were  seldom  able  to  read  a  quipu  without 
the  aid  of  an  oral  commentary ;  when  one  came  from  a  distant 
province,  it  was  necessary  to  give  notice  with  it  whether  it 
referred  to  census,  tribute,  war,  and  so  forth.  In  order  to 
indicate  matters  belonging  to  their  own  immediate  district,  they 
made  at  the  beginning  of  the  main  cord  certain  signs  only  in- 
telligible to  themselves,  and  they  also  carefully  kept  the  quipus 
in  their  proper  departments,  so  as  not  for  instance  to  mistake 
a  tribute  cord  for  one  relating  to  the  census.  By  constant 
practice,  they  so  far  perfected  the  system  as  to  be  able  to  re- 
gister with  their  knots  the  most  important  events  of  the  king- 
dom, and  to  set  down  the  laws  and  ordinances.  In  modern 
times,  all  the  attempts  made  to  read  the  ancient  quipus  have 
been  in  vain.  The  difficulty  in  deciphering  them  is  very  great, 
since  every  knot  indicates  an  idea,  and  a  number  of  intermediate 
notions  are  left  out.  But  the  principal  impediment  is  the  want 
of  the  oral  information  as  to  their  subject-matter,  which  was 
needful  even  to  the  most  learned  decipherers.  However,  should 
He  even  succeed  in  finding  the  key  to  their  interpretation,  the 
results  would  be  of  little  value ;  for  what  would  come  to  light 
would  be  mostly  census-records  of  towns  or  provinces,  taxation- 
lists,  and  accounts  of  the  property  of  deceased  persons.  There 
are  still  some  Indians,  in  the  southern  provinces  of  Peru,  who 


158         GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

are  perfectly  familiar  with  the  contents  of  certain  historical  quip  us 
preserved  from  ancient  times  ;  but  they  keep  their  knowledge  a 
profound  secret,  especially  from  the  white  men.1 

Coming  nearer  to  China,  quipus  are  found  in  the  Eastern 
Archipelago  and  in  Polynesia  proper,2  and  they  were  in  use  in 
Hawaii  forty  years  ago,  in  a  form  seemingly  not  inferior  to  the 
most  elaborate  Peruvian  examples.  "  The  tax-gatherers,  though 
they  can  neither  read  nor  write,  keep  very  exact  accounts  of  all 
the  articles,  of  all  kinds,  collected  from  the  inhabitants  through- 
out the  island.  This  is  done  principally  by  one  man,  and  the 
register  is  nothing  more  than  a  line  of  cordage  from  four  to 
five  hundred  fathoms  in  length.  Distinct  portions  of  this  are 
allotted  to  the  various  districts,  which  are  known  from  one 
another  by  knots,  loops  and  tufts,  of  different  shapes,  sizes, 
and  colours.  Each  taxpayer  in  the  district  has  his  part  in  this 
string,  and  the  number  of  dollars,  hogs,  dogs,  pieces  of  sandal- 
wood,  quantity  of  taro,  etc.,  at  which  he  is  rated,  is  well  de- 
fined by  means  of  marks  of  the  above  kinds,  most  ingeniously 
diversified."3 

The  fate  of  the  quipu  has  been  everywhere  to  be  superseded, 
more  or  less  entirely,  by  the  art  of  writing.  Even  the  picture- 
writing  of  the  ancient  Mexicans  appears  to  have  been  strong 
enough  to  supplant  it.  Whether  its  use  in  Mexico  is  men- 
tioned by  any  old  chronicler  or  not,  I  do  not  know  ;  but  Boturini 
placed  the  fact  beyond  doubt  by  not  only  finding  some  speci- 
mens in  Tlascala,  but  also  recording  their  Mexican  name, 
nepohualtzitzin,4  a  word  derived  from  the  verb  tlapohua,  to 
count.  When,  therefore,  the  Chinese  tell  us  that  they  once 
upon  a  time  used  this  contrivance,  and  that  the  art  of  writing 
superseded  it,  the  analogy  of  what  has  takftn  place  in  other 
countries  makes  it  extremely  probable  that  the  tradition  is  a 
true  one,  and  this  probability  is  reinforced  by  the  unlikeliness 
of  such  a  story  having  been  produced  by  mere  fancy. 

Moreover,  the  historical  value  of  early  tradition  does  not  lie 

1  J.  J.  v.  Tschudi,  'Peru  ;'  St.  Gall,  1846,  vol.  ii.  p.  383.     See  Markbam,  '  Gr. 
&  Die.  of  Quichua,'  p.  11. 

3  Marsden,  p.  192.     Eeate,  loc.  cit.     Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  iv.  p.  396. 
*  Tyennan  and  Bennet,  Journal ;  London,  1831,  vol.  i.  p.  455. 

4  Boturini,  'Ideade  una  nueva  Historia,'  etc.  ;  Madrid,  1746,  p.  85. 


GROWTH   AND   DEC'LIXE  OF   CULTURE.  159 

exclusively  in  the  fragments  of  real  history  it  may  preserve. 
Even  the  myths  which  it  carries  down  to  later  times  may 
become  important  indirect  evidence  in  the  hands  of  the  ethno- 
logist. And  ancient  compositions  handed  down  by  memory 
from  generation  to  generation,  especially  if  a  poetic  form  helps 
to  keep  them  in  their  original  shape,  often  give  us,  if  not  a 
sound  record  of  real  events,  at  least  a  picture  of  the  state  of 
civilization  in  which  the  compositions  themselves  had  their 
origin.  Perhaps  no  branch  of  indirect  evidence,  bearing  on  the 
history  of  culture,  has  been  so  well  worked  as  the  memorials  of 
earlier  states  of  society,  which  have  thus  been  unintentionally 
preserved,  for  instance,  in  the  Homeric  poems.  Safer  examples 
than  the  following  might  be  quoted  ;  but  as  so  much  has  been 
said  of  the  history  of  the  art  of  writing,  the  place  may  serve  to 
cite  what  seems  to  be  a  memorial  of  a  time  when,  among  the 
ancient  Greeks,  picture-writing  had  not  as  yet  been  superseded 
by  word-writing,  in  the  tale  of  Bellerophon,  whom  Proetus  would 
not  kill,  but  he  sent  him  into  Lycia,  and  gave  him  baneful 
signs,  graving  on  a  folded  tablet  many  soul-destroying  things, 
and  bade  him  show  them  to  the  king,  that  he  might  perish  at 
his  hands. 

Il.tjj.Trt  Se  fJLLV  AvKirjvSf,  iropev  S    oye  (rrjpaTa  \vypa, 


TiJii\l/as  ff  TTtvaKi  TTTVKTO>     v[j.i><pa  Troa, 
Aei£cu  8'  ^coyet  w  irevdffHa,  ofyp    nito\oiTO. 

It  happens  unfortunately  that  but  little  evidence  as  to  the 
early  history  of  civilization  is  to  be  got  by  direct  observation, 
that  is,  by  contrasting  the  condition  of  a  low  race  at  different 
times,  so  as  to  see  whether  its  culture  has  altered  in  the  mean- 
while. The  contact  requisite  for  such  an  inspection  of  a  savage 
tribe  by  civilized  men,  has  usually  had  much  the  same  effect  as 
the  experiment  which  an  inquisitive  child  tries  upon  the  root 
it  put  in  the  ground  the  day  before,  by  digging  it  up  to  see 

1  II.,  vi.  163.  Wolf,  Proleg.  in  Horn.  ;  Halle,  1859,  2nd  ed.  vol.  i.  p.  48,  etc. 
Li  del  ell  and  Scott,  «.  v.  awa.  "  Here,  as  everywhere  else,  in  order  thoroughly  to 
understand  Homer,  one  must  use  the  negative  evidence  of  the  tragedians.  Till  we 
remark  how  freely  they  attribute  writing  to  the  heroic  age,  we  shall  not  fully  take 
in  the  importance  of  Homer's  utter  silence  upon  the  subject."—  Saturday  favieic, 
Apr.  29,  1865,  p.  511. 


ICO  GROWTH  AND   DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

whether  it  has  grown.  It  is  a  general  rule  that  original  and 
independent  progress  is  not  found  among  a  people  of  low  civili- 
zation in  presence  of  a  higher  race.  It  is  natural  enough  that 
this  should  be  the  case,  and  it  does  not  in  the  least  affect  the 
question  whether  the  lower  race  was  stationary  or  progressing 
before  the  arrival  of  the  more  cultivated  foreigners.  Even  when 
the  contact  has  been  but  slight  and  temporary,  it  either  becomes 
doubtful  whether  progress  made  soon  afterwards  is  original,  or 
certain  that  it  is  not  so.  It  has  been  asserted,  for  instance, 
that  the  Andaman  Islanders  had  no  boats  in  the  ninth  century, 
and  that  the  canoe  with  an  outrigger  has  only  lately  appeared 
among  them.1  If  these  statements  should  prove  correct,  we 
cannot  assume,  upon  the  strength  of  them,  that  the  islanders 
made  these  inventions  themselves,  seeing  that  they  could  easily 
have  copied  them  from  foreigners.  Moreover,  the  fact  that 
they  now  use  bits  of  glass  bottles,  and  iron  from  wrecks,  in 
making  their  tools  and  weapons,  proves  that  slight  as  their 
intercourse  has  been  with  foreigners,  and  bitter  as  is  their 
hostility  to  them,  their  condition  has,  nevertheless,  been  mate- 
rially changed  by  foreign  influence. 

Though  direct  evidence  thus  generally  fails  us  in  tracing  the 
history  of  the  lower  culture  of  mankind,  there  are  many  ways 
of  bringing  indirect  evidence  to  bear  on  the  problem.  The  early 
Culture  History  of  Mankind  is  capable  of  being  treated  as  an 
Inductive  Science,  by  collecting  and  grouping  facts.  It  is  true 
that  very  little  has  as  yet  been  done  in  this  way,  as  regards  the 
lower  races  at  least ;  but  the  evidence  has  only  to  a  very  slight 
extent  been  got  into  a  state  to  give  definite  results,  and  the 
whole  argument  is  extremely  uncertain  and  difficult :  a  fact 
which  sufficiently  accounts  for  writers  on  the  Origin  of  Civiliza- 
tion being  able  to  tell  us  all  about  it,  with  that  beautiful  ease 
ind  confidence  which  belong  to  the  speculative  philosopher, 
vhose  course  is  but  little  obstructed  by  facts. 

In  a  Lecture  on  the  Origin  of  Civilization,  since  reprinted 
with  a  'Preface,2  the  late  Archbishop  "SVhately  thus  summarily 
disposes  of  any  claim  of  the  lower  races  to  a  power  of  self-im- 

1  Monat,  'Andaman  Islanders,'  pp.  7,  11,  315. 

3  Whately,  '  Miscellaneous  Lectures  and  Reviews  ; '  London,  1856. 


GROWTH  AND   DECLINE   OF   CULTURE.  Id 

provemcnt.  "  For,  all  experience  proves  that  men,  left  in  the 
lowest,  or  even  anything  approaching  to  the  lowest,  degree  of 
barbarism  in  which  they  can  possihly  subsist  at  all,  never  did 
and  never  can  raise  themselves,  unaided,  into  a  higher  condi- 
tion." This  view,  it  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  serves  as  a 
basis  for  a  theory  that,  though  races  arrived  already  at  a  mode- 
rate state  of  culture  may  make  progress  of  themselves,  such 
races  must  have  been  started  on  their  way  upwards  by  a  super- 
natural revelation,  to  bring  them  to  the  point  where  independent 
progress  became  possible.  Now,  the  denial  to  the  low  savage 
of  the  power  of  self-improvement  is  a  broad  statement,  requiring, 
to  justify  it,  at  least  a  good  number  of  cases  of  tribes  who  have 
had  a  fair  trial  under  favourable  circumstances,  and  have  been 
found  wanting.  As  definite  statements  of  this  nature,  the  two 
following  are  considered  by  Archbishop  "VVhately  as  sufficient 
to  give  substance  to  his  argument ;  and  even  these  will  not  bear 
criticism. 

"  The  New  Zealandcrs,  .  .  .  whom  Tasman  first  discovered 
in  1642,  and  who  were  visited  for  the  second  time  by  Cook,  127 
years  after,  were  found  by  him  exactly  in  the  same  condition." 
Now  Tasman  never  set  foot  in  New  Zealand.  The  particulars 
he  recorded  of  the  civilization  of  the  natives,  as  seen  from  his 
ship,  occupy  a  page  or  so  in  his  journal.1  He  mentions  fires 
seen  on  shore  ;  a  sort  of  trumpet  blown  upon  by  the  natives ; 
their  dressing  their  hair  in  a  bunch  behind  the  top  of  the  head, 
with  a  white  feather  stuck  in  it ;  their  double  canoes,  joined 
above  with  a  platform  ;  their  paddles  and  sails  ;  their  clothing, 
which  was  (as  it  seemed)  sometimes  of  matting,  and  sometimes 
of  cotton  (he  was  wrong  as  to  this  last  point,  but  very  excusably 
so,  considering  how  little  opportunity  he  had  of  close  examina- 
tion) ;  their  spears  and  clubs  ;  a  white  flag  carried  by  a  man  in 
a  boat ;  and  the  square  garden-inclosures  seen  on  Three  Kings' 
Island.  This  meagre  account  is  all  the  basis  \Yhately  had 
for  asserting  that  the  condition  of  the  New  Zealanders  in 
Tasman's  time  was  exactly  the  same  as  in  Cook's  time.  In 
point  of  fact,  how  does  it  prove  that  civilization  may  not  have 

1  Swart,   '  Journaal  van  de  Reis  naar  het  onbekende  Zuidland,  door  Abel  Jansz. 
Tasman;'  Amsterdam,  1800,  pp.  80-95. 

M 


1G2  GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF   CULTURE. 

advanced  or  declined  very  considerably  when  Cook  vi sited  the 
country  ? 

The  other  statement  lies  in  the  citing  of  a  remark  of  Darwin's 
about  the  Fuegians,  which  runs  thus  :! — "  Their  skill  in  some 
respects  may  be  compared  to  the  instinct  of  animals ;  for  it  is 
not  improved  by  experience :  the  canoe,  their  most  ingenious 
work,  poor  as  it  is,  has  remained  the  same,  for  the  last  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years."  But  it  must  be  noticed,  that  neither 
is  the  wretched  hand-to-mouth  life  of  the  Fuegians  favourable  to 
progress,  nor  can  a  bark  canoe  ten  feet  long,  holding  four  or  five 
grown  persons,  beside  children,  dogs,  implements,  and  weapons, 
and  in  which  a  fire  can  be  kept  burning  on  a  hearth  in  the 
rough  sea  of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  be  without  tolerable  sea-going 
qualities.  As  to  workmanship,  the  modern  Fuegian  bark  canoes 
are  much  above  the  very  rude  ones  of  the  Australian  coast, 
though  probably  below  the  highly  finished  ones  of  the  Algonquius 
of  North  America.  Sir  Francis  Drake  speaks  of  those  he  saw 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  as  "  most  artificiall,"  and  of  "  most 
fine  proportion,"  and  later  seamen's  remarks,  though  they  do 
not  enable  us  to  say  that  the  modern  ones  are  better  or  worse 
made  than  they  used  to  be,  leave  no  doubt  as  to  their  always 
having  been  high-class  craft  of  their  kind,  so  Ion1*  as  we  know 
anything  about  them.2  But  the  most  remarkable  thing  in  the 
whole  matter,  is  the  fact  that  the  Fuegians  should  have  had 
canoes  at  all,  while  coast-tribes  across  the  straits  made  shift 
with  rafts.  This  was  of  course  a  fact  familiar  to  Mr.  Darwin, 
and  in  the  very  next  sentence  after  that  quoted  above,  he 
actually  goes  on  to  ascribe  to  the  Fuegian  race  the  invention 
of  their  art  of  boat-building.  "  Whilst  beholding  these  savages, 
one  asks,  whence  have  they  come  ?  What  could  have  tempted, 
cr  what  change  compelled  a  tribe  of  men  to  leave  the  fine  regions 
of  the  north,  to  travel  down  the  Cordillera  or  backbone  of 
America,  to  invent  and  build  canoes,  and  then  to  enter  on  one 
of  the  most  inhospitable  countries  within  the  limits  of  the 

1  Fitz  Roy  and  Darwin,  Narrative  of  Voyage  of  '  Adventure '  and  '  Beagle ; ' 
London,  1839,  vol.  iii.  p.  236.  See  vol.  i.  p.  137. 

1  'The  World  Encompassed  by  Sir  Francis  Drake.'  Hakluyt  Soc.  18^4,  pp.  74  8. 
Klemm,  C.  G.,  voL  i.  p.  33<X  W.  P.  Snow,  '  Tierra  del  Fuego,'  etc.  ;  London,  1857, 
ToL  I  i.  3o8 


GROWTH   AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE.  1G3 

globe  ? "  Of  this  part  of  Mr.  Darwin's  remarks,  however, 
Archbishop  Whately  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  take  notice. 
It  is  a  proof  of  the  unsatisfactory  condition  of  theological 
literature  in  England,  that  Whately's  Essay,  wanting  as  it  is 
in  any  real  evidence,  should  still  be  quoted  as  of  authority. 

Far  more  profitable  work  than  the  construction  of  speculative 
theories,  may  be  done  by  collecting  facts  or  groups  of  facts 
leading  to  direct  inferences.  When  both  fact  and  inference  are 
sound,  every  such  argument  is  a  step  gained,  while  if  either  be 
unsound,  a  distinct  statement  of  fact  and  issue  is  the  best  means 
of  getting  them  corrected,  or,  if  needful,  discarded  altogether. 
A  principal  object  of  the  present  chapter  is  to  bring  forward  a 
variety  of  instances  drawn  from  sources  where  indirect  evidence 
bearing  on  our  early  history  is  to  be  sought. 

As  examples  of  evidence  from  language,  a  few  cases  may  be 
given.  The  word  calculation,  indicating  the  primitive  art  of 
reckoning  by  pebbles,  or  calculi,  has  passed  on  with  the  growth 
of  science  to  designate  the  working  of  problems  far  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  abacus.  So,  though  the  Mexicans,  when  they  were 
discovered,  had  a  high  numerical  system  and  were  good  reckoners, 
the  word  Ml,  "  stone,."  remained  as  an  integral  part  of  one  of 
their  sets  of  numerals  for  counting  animals  and  things ;  centetl 
"one  stone,"  ontetl  "two  stone,"  etetl  "three  stone,"  etc., 
meaning  nothing  more  than  one,  two,  three.  Nor  is  Mexico  the 
only  country  where  this  curious  phenomenon  occurs.  The 
Malays  say  for  "  one  "  not  only  sa,  but  also  sawatu,  that  is 
literally  "  one  stone,"  and  the  Javans  say  not  only  sa  but  sauiji, 
that  is,  "one  corn,  or  seed,"  and  in  like  manner  the  Nias 
language  calls  one  and  two  sambua  and  dumbua,  that  is,  appa- 
rently, "  one  fruit,"  "  two  fruits."  l 

Still  more  notable  is  the  Aztec  term  for  an  eclipse.  The 
idea  that  the  sun  and  moon  are  swallowed  or  bitten  by  dragons, 
or  great  dogs,  or  other  creatures,  is  not  only  very  common  in 
the  Old  World,  but  it  is  even  found  in  North  and  South 
America  and  Polynesia.2  But  there  is  evidence  that  the 

1  Crawfurd,  Gr.  and  Die.  of  Malay  Language  ;  London,  1852,  voL  i.  pp.  M.  Iviii. 
Ixvii.  and  see  ccxviii. 

2  Jacob  Grimm,    '  Deutsche  Mythologie,'  pp.  224-5    668.     Schoolcraft,    part  l. 

si  - 


164  GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF   CULTURE. 

ancient  Mexicans  understood  the  real  cause  of  eclipses.  They 
are  represented  in  the  picture-writings  by  a  figure  of  the  moon's 
disc  covering  part  of  the  sun's,  and  this  symbol,  Humboldt 
remarks,  "  proves  exact  notions  as  to  the  cause  of  eclipses ;  it 
reminds  us  of  the  allegorical  dance  of  the  Mexican  priests, 
which  represented  the  moon  devouring  the  sun."]  Yet  the 
Mexicans  preserved  the  memory  of  an  earlier  state  of  astrono- 
mical knowledge,  by  calling  eclipses  of  the  sun  and  moon 
tonatiuh  qualo,  metztli  qualo,  that  is,  "  the  sun's  being  eaten," 
"the  moon's  being  eaten,"  just  as  the  Finns  say,  kuu  syodtid, 
"the  moon  is  eaten,"  and  the  Tahitians,  that  she  is  natua,  that 
is  "  bitten  "  or  "  pinched."  8  In  the  Mexican  celebration  of  the 
Netonatiuh-qualo,  or  eclipse  of  the  sun,  two  of  the  captives 
sacrificed  appeared  as  likenesses  of  the  sun  and  moon.3 

When,  a  thing  or  an  art  is  named  in  one  country  by  a  word 
belonging  to  the  language  of  another,  as  maize,  hammock, 
algebra,  and  the  like,  it  is  often  good  evidence  that  the  thing 
or  art  itself  came  from  thence,  bringing  its  name  with  it.  This 
kind  of  evidence,  bearing  upon  the  progress  of  civilization,  has 
been  much  and  successfully  worked,  but  it  has  to  be  used  with 
great  caution  when  the  foreign  language  is  an  important  me- 
dium of  instruction,  or  spoken  by  a  race  dominant  or  powerful 
in  the  country.  As  instances  of  words  good  or  bad  as  historical 
evidence,  may  be  taken  the  Arabic  words  in  Spanish.  While 
alqidmia  (alchemy),  albornoz  (bornoos),  acequia  (irrigating  chan- 
nel), albaricoque  (apricot),  and  many  more,  may  really  carry  with 
them  historical  information  of  more  or  less  value,  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  influence  of  the  Arabic  language  in 
Spain  was  so  great,  that  it  has  often  given  words  for  what  was 
there  long  before  Moorish  tunes,  alacran  (scorpion),  alboroto 
(uproar),  alcor  (hill),  and  so  on;  not  satisfied  with  their  own 
word  for  head,  to  express  a  head  of  cattle,  the  Spaniards  must 
needs  call  it  res,  Arabic  ras,  head.  So  the  New  Zealanders'  use 

p.  271.  Dobrizhoffer,  vol.  ii.  p.  84.  Du  Tertre,  '  Hist.  Gen.  des  Antilles,'  etc.  ; 
Paris,  1667,  TO!,  ii.  p.  371.  Turner,  'Polynesia, 'p.  531. 

1  Humboldt,  Vues,  pi.  56. 

1  Castren,  '  Finnische  Mythologie,'  pp.  63-5.  Grimm,  D.  M.  p.  669.  Ellis,  Polyn. 
Res.  vol.  ii.  p.  415. 

»  Nieremberg,  Hist.  Nat.  ;  Antwerp,  1635,  p.  143.     Humboldt,  Vues,  pi.  23. 


GROWTH  AND   DECLINE  OF   CULTURE.  1G5 

of  buka-buka  for  book  is  good  evidence  as  to  wlio  taught  them 
to  read.  But  the  name  that  the  Tahitian  nobles  are  now  com- 
monly adopting,  instead  of  the  native  term  arii,  is  bad  evidence 
as  to  the  origin  of  caste  among  them ;  they  like  the  title  of 
tacana,  which  is  a  native  attempt  at  governor-, 

Even  the  etymology  of  a  word  may  sometimes  throw  light 
upon  the  transmission  of  art  and  knowledge  from  one  country 
to  another,  as  where  we  may  see  how  the  Roman  maAesiibstantia 
by  translating  v/ioVrao-is,  and  the  German,  making  himself  a 
word  for  "  superstition,"  abcrglaube,  Flemish  overgeloof,  that  is 
"over  belief,"  had  the  super  of  supers 'itio  before  him  when  he 
introduced  into  his  language  a  notion  which  it  had  perhaps 
hardly  realized  before.  To  take  a  more  speculative  case  of  a 
very  different  kind,  the  tea-urns  used  in  Russia  are  well  known, 
but  where  did  the  Russians  get  the  invention  from  ?  They  get 
their  tea  from  China,  where  tea-urns  much  resembling  our  own 
have  long  been  in  use.  But  the  apparatus  is  no  new  thing  in 
Europe,  and  the  specimen  in  the  Naples  Museum,  if  it  were 
coloured  with  the  conventional  chocolate  colour,  and  had  a  tap 
put  in  to  replace  the  original  one  Avhich  is  lost,  would  perhaps 
be  only  remarked  upon  at  an  English  tea-table  as  being  beautiful 
but  old-fashioned.  It  was  kept  hot  by  charcoal  burning  in  a 
tube  in  the  middle,  like  the  Russian  urns.  Now  the  name  of  a 
vessel  just  answering  this  description  has  been  preserved, 
authepsa  (avdtyrjs,  "self-boiler"),  and  of  this  term  the  Russian 
name  for  their  urns,  samovar,  "  self-boiler,"  is  an  exact  transla- 
tion. The  coincidence  suggests  that  they  may  have  received 
both  the  thing  and  its  name  through  Constantinople.  Moreover, 
there  is  reason  to  think  that  the  Western  element  in  Chinese 
art  is  far  more  important  than  is  popularly  supposed,  and  the 
tea-urn  is  so  peculiar  an  apparatus,  and  so  strikingly  alike  in 
ancient  Italy  and  in  China,  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  the 
two  should  be  the  results  of  separate  invention.  The  Russians 
actually  supply  Bokhara  with  samovars,1  so  that  on  the  whole 
there  seems  fair  ground  for  the  view  that  the  hot-water  urn 
originated  very  early  in  Europe,  and  travelled  east  as  far  as 
China. 

1  Yambery,  'Travels  in  Central  Asia;'  London,  1S64,  p.  173. 


166  GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

It  often  happens  that  an  old  art  or  custom,  which  has  been 
superseded  for  general  purposes  by  some  more  convenient  arrange- 
ment, is  kept  up  long  afterwards  in  solemn  ceremonies  and 
other  matters  under  the  control  of  priests  and  officials,  who 
are  commonly  averse  to  change ;  as  inventions  have  often  to 
wait  long  after  they  have  come  into  general  use  before  they  are 
officially  recognized.  Wooden  tallies  were  given  for  receipts  by 
our  Exchequer  up  to  the  time  of  William  IV.,  as  if  to  keep  up, 
as  long  as  might  be,  the  remembrance  of  the  time  when  "our 
forefathers  had  no  other  books  but  the  score  and  the  tally." 
It  is  true  that  the  notched  Exchequer  tally  had  long  had  a 
Latin  inscription  on  it,  and  at  last  there  was  given  into  the 
bargain  a  fair  English  receipt,  written  on  a  separate  paper. 
The  tally  survives  still,  not  only  in  the  broken  sixpence,  and 
in,  the  bargains  of  peasants  in  outlying  districts,1  but  in  the 
counterfoil  of  the  banker's  cheque.  Some  evidence  of  this 
ceremonial  keeping  up  of  arts  superseded  in  private  life,  will  be 
given  in  the  chapters  on  the  Stone  Age  and  Fire-making. 

Such  helps  as  these  in  working  out  the  problem  of  the  Origin 
and  Progress  of  Culture  grow  scarcer  as  we  descend  among  the 
lower  races,  and  those  of  which  we  have  little  or  no  historical 
knowledge.  Mere  observation  of  arts  in  use,  and  of  objects 
belonging  to  tribes  living  or  dead,  forms  at  present  the  bulk  of 
the  evidence  of  the  history  of  their  culture  accessible  to  us.  Of 
these  records  an  immense  mass  has  been  collected,  but  they  are 
very  hard  to  read. 

Sometimes,  indeed,  an  object  carries  its  history  written  in 
its  form,  as  some  of  the  Esquimaux  knives  brought  to  England, 
which  are  carved  out  of  a  single  piece  of  bone,  in  imitation  of 
European  knives  with  handles,  and  show  that  the  maker  was 
acquainted  with  those  higher  instruments,  though  he  had  not 
the  iron  to  make  a  blade  of,  or  even  a  few  scraps  to  fix  along  the 
edge  of  the  bone  blade,  as  they  so  often  do. 

The  keeping  up  in  stone  architecture  of  designs  belonging  to 
wooden  buildings,  furnishes  conclusive  proofs  of  the  growth,  in 
several  countries,  of  the  art  of  building  in  stone  from  the  art  of 
tuilding  in  wood, — an  argument  which  is  used  with  extra- 

1  Pictet,  'Origines,'  part  ii.  p.  425. 


GROWTH  AND  DECLINE   OF  CULTURE.  1G7 

ordinary  clearness  and  power  in  Mr.  Fergusson's  Handbook.  In 
Central  America  and  Asia  Minor  there  are  still  to  be  seen  stone 
buildings  more  or  less  entirely  copied  from  wooden  constructions, 
while  in  Egypt  a  like  phenomenon  may  be  traced  in  structures 
belonging  to  the  remote  age  of  the  pyramids.  The  student  may 
see,  almost  as  if  he  had  been  standing  by  when  they  were  built, 
how  the  architect,  while  adopting  the  new  material)  began  by 
copying  from  the  wooden  structures  to  which  he  had  been 
accustomed.  Speaking  of  the  Lycian  tombs  which  still  remain 
with  their  beams,  planks,  and  panels,  as  it  were  turned  from 
wood  into  stone,  Mr.  Fergusson  remarks  upon  the  value  of  such 
monuments  as  records  of  the  beginning  of  stone  architecture 
among  the  people  who  built  them.  "...  wherever  the  process 
can  be  detected,  it  is  in  vain  to  look  for  earlier  buildings.  It  is 
only  in  the  infancy  of  stone  architecture  that  men  adhere  to 
wooden  forms,  and  as  soon  as  habit  gives  them  familiarity  with 
the  new  material,  they  abandon  the  incongruities  of  the  style, 
and  we  lose  all  trace  of  the  original  form,  which  never  reappears 
at  an  after  age."1 

There  could  hardly  be  a  better  illustration  of  an  ethnological 
argument  derived  from  the  mere  presence  of  an  art,  than  in 
Marsden's  remark  about  the  iron-smelters  of  Madagascar.  It  is 
well  known  that  the  Madagascans  are  connected  by  language 
with  the  great  Malayo-Pohnesian  family  which  extends  half 
round  the  globe ;  but  the  art  of  smelting  iron  has  only  been 
found  in  the  islands  of  this  vast  district  near  Eastern  Asia,  and 
iii  Madagascar  itself.  Even  in  New  Zealand,  where  there  is 
good  iron  ore,  there  was  no  knowledge  of  iron.  Now  at  the 
time  of  our  becoming  acquainted  with  the  races  of  Africa,  in 
central  latitudes  and  far  down  into  the  south,  they  were  iron- 
smelters,  and  had  been  so  for  we  know  not  how  long,  and  Africa 
is  only  three  or  four  hundred  miles  from  Madagascar,  whereas 
Sumatra  is  three  or  four  thousand.  Nevertheless,  Marsden's 
observation  connects  the  art  in  Madagascar  with  the  distant 
Eastern  Archipelago,  rather  than  with  the  neighbouring  African 
continent.  The  process  of  smelting  in  small  furnaces  or  pits  is 

1  Fergusson,    '  Illustrated   Handbook  of   Architecture  ; '    London,    1855,    vol.  L 

pp.  148,  208,  220,  etc.  • 


1G8  GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

much  the  same  in  these  two  districts,  but  the  bellows  are 
different.  The  usual  African  bellows  consist  of  two  skins  with 
valves  worked  alternately  by  hand,  so  as  to  give  a  continuous 
draught,  much  the  same  as  those  of  Modern  India.  These  were 

O         " 

not  only  in  use  among  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans,  but  are 
still  to  be  found  in  Southern  Europe ;  I  saw  a  wandering  tinker 
at  work  at  Pa3stuni  with  a  pair  of  goatsldns  with  the  hair  on, 
which  he  compressed  alternately  to  drive  a  current  of  air  into 
his  fire,  opening  and  shutting  with  his  hands  the  slits  which 
served  as  valves.  Several  of  these  skin-beUo>vs  are  often  used 
at  once  in  Africa,  and  there  are  to  be  found  improved  forms 
which  approach  more  nearly  to  our  bellows  with  boards,  but  the 
principle  is  the  same.1  But  the  Malay  blowing  apparatus  is 
something  very  different;  it  is  a  double-barreled  air  forcing- 
pump.  It  consists  of  two  bamboos,  four  inches  in  diameter  and 
five  feet  long,  which  are  set  upright,  forming  the  cylinders, 
which  are  open  above,  and  closed  below  except  by  two  small 
bamboo  tubes  which  converge  and  meet  at  the  fire.  Each  piston 
consists  of  a  bunch  of  feathers  or  other  soft  substance,  which 
expands  and  fits  tightly  in  the  cylinder  while  it  is  being  forcibly 
driven  down,  and  collapses  to  let  the  air  pass  as  it  is  drawn  up ; 
and  a  boy  perched  on  a  high  seat  or  stand  works  the  two  pistons 
alternately  by  the  piston-rods,  which  are  sticks.  (It  is  likely 
that  each  cylinder  may  have  a  valve  to  prevent  the  return 
draught.)  Similar  contrivances  have  been  described  elsewhere 
in  the  Eastern  Archipelago,  in  Java,  Mindanao,  Borneo,  and 
New  Guinea,  and  in  Siam,  the  cylinders  being  sometimes  bam- 
boos and  sometimes  hollowed  trunks  of  trees.  Marsden  called 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  apparatus  used  in  Madagascar  is 
similar  to  that  of  Sumatra.  There  is  a  description  and  drawing 
in  Ellis's  '  Madagascar,'  which  need  not  be  quoted  in  detail,  as 
it  does  not  differ  in  principle  from  that  of  the  Eastern  Archi- 
pelago. A  single  cylinder  is  sometimes  used  in  Madagascar, 
and  perhaps  also  in  Borneo,  but  as  a  rule  the  far  more  advan- 

1  Petherick,  pp.  293,  395.  Andersson,  p.  3C4.  Backhouse,  Narr.  of  a  Visit  to 
the  Mauritius  and  S.  Africa  ;  London,  1844,  p.  377.  Du  Chaillu,  '  Equatorial  Africa,' 
p.  91,  etc.  etc.  It  appears,  however,  that  a  bellows  on  the  Malagasy  principle  ia 
known  in  West  African  districts.  See  Waitz,  vol.  ii.  p.  378. 


GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE.  160 

tageons  plan  of  working  two  or  several  at  once  is  adopted.  The 
Chinese  tinkers,  who  practise  the  art,  quite  unknown  in  Europe, 
of  patching  a  cast-iron  vessel  with  a  clot  of  melted  iron,  perform 
this  extraordinary  feat  with  an  air  forcing-pump,  which  has 
indeed  but  a  single  trunk  and  a  piston  backed  with  feathers,  but 
is  improved  by  valves  and  a  passage  which  give  it  what  is  known 
as  a  "  double  action,"  so  that  the  single  barrel  does  the  work  of 
two  in  the  ruder  construction  of  the  islands.1 

It  seems  from  the  appearance  of  this  remarkable  apparatus  in 
Madagascar  and  in  the  Eastern  Archipelago,  that  the  art  of  iron- 
smelting  in  these  distant  districts  has  had  a  common  origin. 

°  O 

"V  cry  likely  the  art  may  have  gone  from  Sumatra  or  Java  to 
Madagascar,  but  if  so,  this  must  have  happened  when  they  were 
in  the  Iron  Age,  to  which  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  they 
had  come  in  the  time  of  their  connexion  with  the  ironless  Maoris 
and  Tahitians.  Language  throws  no  light  on  the  matter ;  iron 
is  called  in  Malay,  bdsi,  and  in  Malagasy,  ri. 

It  is  but  seldom  that  the  transmission  of  an  art  to  distant 
regions  can  be  traced,  except  among  comparatively  high  races, 
by  such  a  beautiful  piece  of  evidence  as  this.  The  state  of 
things  among  the  lower  tribes  which  presents  itself  to  the 
student,  is  a  substantial  similarity  in  knowledge,  arts,  and  cus- 
toms, running  through  the  whole  world.  Not  that  the  whole 
culture  of  all  tribes  is  alike, — far  from  it ;  but  if  any  art  or 
custom  belonging  to  a  low  tribe  is  selected  at  random,  it  is 
twenty  to  one  that  something  substantially  like  it  may  be  found 
in  at  least  one  place  thousands  of  miles  off,  though  it  very 
frequently  happens  that  there  are  large  portions  of  the  earth's 
surface  lying  between,  where  it  has  not  been  observed.  Indeed, 
there  are  few  things  in  cookery,  clothing,  arms,  vessels,  boats, 
ornaments,  found  in  one  place,  that  cannot  be  matched  more  or 
less  nearly  somewhere  else,  unless  we  go  into  small  details,  or 
rise  to  the  level  of  the  Peruvians  and  Mexicans,  or  at  least  of 
the  highest  South  Sea  Islanders.  A  few  illustrations  may  serve 

5  Marsden,  p.  181.  Raffles,  Hist,  of  Java,  vol.  i.  pp.  168,  173.  Dam  pier, 
'  Voyages  ;'  London,  1703-9,  oth  ed.  vol.  i.  p.  332.  Bishop  of  Labuan,  in  Tr.  Kih. 
Sec.  ;  London,  1863,  p.  29.  Gr.  W.  Earl,  'Papuans;'  London,  1853,  p.  76.  Muiiliot, 
'Travels  in  Indo-Cbina,'  etc.  ;  London,  1S64,  vol.  ii.  p.  133.  Ellis,  'Madagascar,' 
voL  i.  p.  307.  Percy,  '  Metallurgy  ; '  London,  1S64,  pp.  255,  273-8,  746. 


170  GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF   CULTURE. 

to  give  an  idea  of  the  kind  of  similarity  which  prevails  so  largely 
among  the  simpler  arts  of  mankind. 

The  most  rudimentary  bird-trap  is  that  in  which  the  hunter  is 
his  own  trap,  as  in  Australia,  where  Collins  thus  describes  it : — 
"  A  native  will  stretch  himself  upon  a  rock  as  if  asleep  in  the 
sun,  holding  a  piece  of  fish  in  his  open  hand ;  the  bird,  be  it 
hawk  or  crow,  seeing  the  prey,  and  not  observing  any  motion  in 
the  native,  pour  3es  on  the  fish,  and,  in  the  instant  of  seizing  it, 
is  caught  by  the  native,  who  soon  throws  him  on  the  fire  and 
makes  a  meal  of  him."  Ward,  the  missionary,  declares  that  a 
tame  monkey  in  India,  whose  food  the  crows  used  to  plunder 
while  he  sat  on  the  top  of  his  pole,  did  something  very  near 
this,  by  shamming  dead  within  reach  of  the  food,  and  seizing 
the  first  crow  that  came  close  enough.  When  he  had  caught  it, 
the  story  says,  he  put  it  between  his  knees,  deliberately  plucked 
it,  and  threw  it  up  into  the  air.  The  other  crows  set  upon  their 
disabled  companion  and  pecked  it  to  death,  but  they  let  the 
monkey's  store  alone  ever  after.  The  Esquimaux  so  far  im- 
proves upon  the  Australian  form  of  the  art  as  to  build  himself  a 
little  snow-hut  to  sit  in,  with  a  hole  large  enough  for  him  to  put 
his  hand  through  to  clutch  the  bird  that  comes  down  upon  the 
bait.1 

There  is  a  curious  little  art,  practised  in  various  countries, 
that  of  climbing  trees  by  the  aid  of  hoops,  fetters,  or  ropes. 
Father  Gilij  thus  describes  it  among  the  Indians  of  South 
America : — "  They  are  all  extremely  active  in  climbing  trees,  and 
even  the  weaker  women  may  be  not  uncommonly  seen  plucking 
the  fruit  at  their  tops.  If  the  bark  is  so  smooth  and  slippery 
that  they  cannot  go  up  by  clinging,  they  use  another  means. 
They  make  a  hoop  of  wild  vines,  and  putting  their  feet  inside, 
they  use  it  as  a  support  in  climbing."2  This  is  what  the  toddy- 
drawer  of  Ceylon  uses  to  climb  the  palm  with,3  but  the  negro  of 
the  Wrest  Coast  of  Africa  makes  a  larger  hoop  round  the  tree  and 
gets  inside  it,  resting  the  lower  part  of  his  back  against  it,  and 

1  Collins,  vol.  L  p.  548.  Ward,  'Hindoos,' p.  43.  Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  i.  p.  314  ; 
fol.  ii.  p.  292. 

8  Gilij,  'Saggio  di  Storia  Americana  ;'  Rome,  1780-4,  vol.  ii.  p.  40.  See  Bates, 
"The  Naturalist  on  the  R.  Amazons; '  London,  1863,  vol.  ii  p.  196. 

3  Tennent,  'Ceylon,'  vol.  ii.  p.  523.     See  Plin.,  xiii.  7. 


GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE.  171 

jerks  it  up  the  trunk  with  his  hands,  a  little  at  a  time,  drawing 
his  legs  up  afcer  it.1  Ellis  describes  the  Tahitian  hoys  tying 
their  feet  together,  four  or  five  inches  apart,  with  a  piece  of 
palm -hark,  and  with  the  aid  of  this  fetter  going  up  the  cocoa- 
palms  to  gather  the  nuts  ; 2  and  Backhouse  mentions  a  different 
plan  in  use  in  opossum-catching  in  Van  Diemen's  Land.  The 
native  women  who  climbed  the  tall,  smooth  gum-trees  did  not  cut 
notches  after  the  Australian  plan,  except  where  the  bark  was 
rough  and  loose  near  the  ground.  Having  got  over  this  part  by 
the  notches,  they  threw  round  the  tree  a  rope  twice  as  long  as 
was  necessary  to  encompass  it,  put  their  hatchets  on  their  bare, 
cropped  heads,  and  placing  their  feet  against  the  tree  and  grasp- 
ing the  rope  with  their  hands,  they  hitched  it  up  by  jerks,  and 
pulled  themselves  up  the  enormous  trunk  almost  as  fast  as  a 
man  would  mount  a  ladder.3 

The  ancient  Mexicans'  art  of  turning  the  waters  of  their  lakes 
to  account  by  constructing  floating  gardens  upon  them,  has  been 
abandoned,  apparently  on  account  of  the  sinking  of  the  waters, 
which  are  now  shallow  enough  to  allow  the  mud  gardens  to  rest 
upon  the  bottom.  At  the  time  of  Humboldt's  visit  to  Mexico, 
however,  there  were  still  some  to  be  seen,  though  their  number 
was  fast  decreasing.  The  floating  gardens,  or  chinampas,  which 
the  Spaniards  found  in  great  numbers,  and  several  of  which  still 
existed  in  his  time  on  the  lake  of  Chalco,  were  rafts  formed  of 
reeds,  roots,  and  branches  of  underwood.  The  Indians  laid  on 
the  tangled  mass  quantities  of  the  black  mould,  which  is  natu- 
rally impregnated  with  salt,  but  by  washing  with  lake  water  is 
made  more  fertile.  "  The  chinampas,"  he  continues,  "  some- 
times even  carry  the  hut  of  the  Indian  who  serves  as  guard  for 
a  group  of  floating  gardens.  They  are  towed,  or  propelled  with 
long  poles,  to  move  them  at  will  from  shore  to  shore."4  Though 
floating  gardens  are  no  longer  to  be  met  with  in  Mexico,  they 
are  still  in  full  use  in  the  shallow  waters  of  Cashmere.  They 
are  made  of  mould  heaped  on  masses  of  the  stalks  of  aquatic 
plants,  and  will  mostly  bear  a  man's  weight,  though  the  fruit  is 

1  Klemm,  C.  6.,  vol.  iii.  p.  236.     Adanson  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  xvi.  p.  642. 
*  Kills,  vol.  i.  p.  371.  :(  Backhouse,  '  Australia,'  p.  172. 

4  Humboldt,  'Essai  Politique  ; '  Paris,  1S11,  vol.  ii.  p.  185,  etc. 


172  GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

generally  picked  from  the  banks.  They  differ  from  the  ancient 
Mexican  chinampas  in  not  being  towed  from  one  place  to  another, 
but  impaled  on  fixed  stakes,  which  keep  them  to  their  moorings, 
but  allow  them  to  rise  and  fall  with  the  level  of  the  water.1 

The  floatiiMj  islands  of  the  Chinese  lakes  are  far  more  artificial 
structures  than  those  of  Mexico  or  Cashmere.  The  missionary 
Hue  thus  describes  those  he  saw  on  the  lake  of  Pinghou  : — "  We 
passed  beside  several  floating  islands,  quaint  and  ingenious  pro- 
ductions of  Chinese  industry  which  have  perhaps  occurred  to  no 
other  people.  These  floating  islands  are  enormous  rafts,  con- 
structed generally  of  large  bamboos,  which  long  resist  the 
dissolving  action  of  water.  Upon  these  rafts  there  is  placed  a 
tolerably  thick  bed  of  good  vegetable  mould,  and  thanks  to  the 
patient  labour  of  some  families  of  aquatic  agriculturists,  the 
astonished  eye  sees  rising  from  the  surface  of  the  waters  smiling 
habitations,  fields,  gardens,  and  plantations  of  great  variety. 
The  peasants  on  these  farms  seem  to  live  in  happy  abundance. 
During  the  moments  of  rest  left  them  from  the  tillage  of  the 
rice  plots,  fishing  is  at  once  their  lucrative  and  agreeable  pastime. 
Often  when  they  have  gathered  in  their  crop  upon  the  lake,  they 
throw  their  net  and  draw  it  on  board  their  island  loaded  with 
fish.  .  .  .  Many  birds,  especially  pigeons  and  sparrows,  stay  by 
their  own  choice  in  these  floating  fields  to  share  the  peaceable 
and  solitary  happiness  of  these  poetical  islanders.  Towards  the 
middle  of  the  lake,  we  met  with  one  of  these  farms  attempting  a 
voyage.  It  moved  with  extreme  slowness,  though  it  had  the 
wind  aft.  Not  that  sails  were  wanting  ;  there  was  a  very  large 
one  above  the  house,  and  several  others  at  the  corners  of  the 
island ;  moreover,  all  the  islanders,  men,  women,  and  children, 
provided  with  long  sweeps,  were  working  with  might  and  main, 
though  without  putting  much  speed  into  their  farm.  But  it  is 
likely  that  the  fear  of  delay  does  not  much  trouble  these  agricul- 
tural mariners,  who  are  always  sure  to  arrive  in  time  to  sleep  on 
land.  They  are  often  seen  to  move  from  place  to  place  without 
a  motive,  like  the  Mongols  in  the  midst  of  their  vast  prairies ; 
though,  happier  than  those  wanderers,  they  have  learned  to 
make  for  themselves  as  it  were  a  desert  in  the  midst  of  civiliza- 
1  Ton-ens,  '  Travels  in  Ladak,'  etc. ;  London,  1862,  p.  271. 


GROWTH  AND   DECLINE  OF  CULTURE.  173 

tion,  and  to  ally  the  charms  and  pleasures  of  a  nomade  with  the 
advantages  of  a  sedentary  life.  "  1 

Such  coincidences  as  these,  when  found  in  distant  regions 
between  whose  inhabitants  no  intercourse  is  known  to  have  taken 
place,  are  not  to  be  lightly  used  as  historical  evidence  of  con- 
nexion. It  is  safest  to  ascribe  them  to  independent  invention, 
unless  the  coincidence  passes  the  limits  of  ordinary  probability. 
Ancient  as  the  art  of  putting  in  false  teeth  is  in  the  Old  World, 
it  would  scarcely  be  thought  to  affect  the  originality  of  the  same 
practice  in  Quito,  where  a  skeleton  has  been  found  with  false 
teeth  secured  to  the  cheek-bone  by  a  gold  wire,2  nor  does  the 
discovery  in  Egypt  of  mummies  with  teeth  stopped  with  gold, 
appear  to  have  any  historical  connexion  with  the  same  contrivance 
among  ourselves.3  Thus,  too,  the  Australians  were  in  the  habit 
of  cooking  fish  and  pieces  of  meat  in  hot  sand,  each  tied  up  in  a 
sheet  of  bark,  and  this  is  called  yudarn  dookoon,  or  "tying-up 
cooking," 4  but  it  does  not  follow  that  they  had  learnt  from 
Europe  the  art  of  dressing  fish  en  papillate. 

Perhaps  the  occurrence  of  that  very  civilized  instrument,  the 
fork  for  eating  meat  with,  in  the  Fiji  Islands,  is  to  be  accounted 
for  by  considering  it  to  have  been  independently  invented  there. 
The  Greeks  and  Eomans  do  not  appear  to  have  used  forks  in 
eating,  and  they  are  said  not  to  have  been  introduced  in  England 
from  the  South  of  Europe,  till  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century.5  At  any  rate,  Hakluyt  thus  translates,  in  1598,  a 
remark  made  by  Galeotto  Perera,  concerning  the  use  of  chop- 
sticks in  China  ; — "  they  feede  with  two  sticks,  refraining  from 
touching  their  meate  with  their  hands,  even  as  we  do  with 
forkes  ;  "  but  he  finds  it  necessary  to  put  a  note  in  the  margin, 
"We,  that  is  the  Italians  and  Spaniards."6  How  long  forks 
had  been  used  in  the  South  of  Europe,  and  where  they  originally 
came  from,  does  not  seem  clear,  but  there  is  a  remark  to  the 
purpose  in  William  of  Euysbruck's  description  of  the  manners 

1  H\ic,  'L'Empire  Chinois  ; '  Paris,  1854,  2nd  eel.  p.  114. 

2  Bollaert,  Res.  in  New  Granada,  etc.  ;  London,  1860,  p.  83. 

3  Wilkinson,  Pop.  Ace.,  vol.  ii.  p.  350.  4  Grey,  Journals,  vol.  ii.  p.  276. 
6  Wright,  '  Domestic  Manners,'  p.  457. 

6  Hakluyt,  'The  Principal  Navigations,  Voyages,'  etc.  ;  London,  1598,  voL  ii. 
part  ii.  p.  68. 


174  GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

of  the  Tatars,  through  whose  country  he  travelled  about  1253. 
"  They  cut  up  (the  meat)  into  little  bits  in  a  dish  with  salt  and 
water,  for  they  make  no  other  sauce,  and  then  with  the  point  of 
a  knife  or  with  a  little  fork  (furciculd),  which  they  make  for  the 
purpose,  like  those  we  use  for  eating  pears  and  apples  stewed  in 
wine,  they  give  each  of  the  guests  standing  round  one  mouthful 
or  two,  according  to  their  numbers."1 

The  circumstances  under  which  the  fork  makes  its  appearance 
in  the  Fiji  Islands,  are  remarkable.  If  it  is  known  elsewhere  in 
Polynesia  (except  of  course  as  distinctly  adopted  with  other 
European  fashions),  it  is  certain  not  commonly  so,  and  its  use 
appears  to  be  connected  with  the  extraordinary  development  of 
the  art  of  cooking  there,  as  contrasted  with  most  of  the  Pacific 
islands,  where,  generally  speaking,  there  were  no  vessels  in  which 
liquid  was  boiled  over  the  fire,  and  boiling,  if  done  at  all,  was 
done  by  a  ruder  process.  But  the  Fijians  were  accomplished 
potters,  and  continue  to  use  their  earthen  vessels  for  the  prepara- 
tion of  their  various  soups  and  stews,  for  fishing  the  hot  morsels 
out  of  which  the  forks  are  used,  perhaps  exclusively.  Those  we 
hear  of  particularly  are  the  "  cannibal  forks  "  for  eating  man's 
flesh,  which  are  of  wood,  artistically  shaped  and  sometimes 
ornamented,  and  were  handed  down  as  family  heirlooms.  Each 
had  its  individual  name ;  for  instance,  one  which  belonged  to  a 
chief  celebrated  for  his  enormous  cannibalism  was  called  ?m- 
droimdro,  "  a  word  used  to  denote  a  small  person  or  thing 
carrying  a  great  burden."2  It  would  be  a  remarkable  point  if, 
as  Dr.  Seemann  thinks,  the  fork  were  only  used  for  this  purpose,3 
and  we  might  be  inclined  to  theorize  on  its  invention  as  connected 
with  the  tabu,  so  common  in  Polynesia,  which  restricts  the  tabued 
person  from  touching  his  food  with  his  hands,  and  compels  him 
to  be  fed  by  some  one  else,  or  in  default,  to  grovel  on  the  ground 
and  take  up  his  food  with  his  mouth.  But  a  description  by 
Williams  of  the  furniture  of  a  Fijian  household,  seems  to  imply 
its  use  for  ordinary  purposes  as  well.  "  On  the  hearth,  each  set 
on  three  stones,  are  several  pots,  capable  of  holding  from  a  quart 

1  GuL  de  Rubruquis,   in  Hakluyt,  vol.  L  p.  75.     See  Ayton,  in  Purchas,  vol.  iii. 
p.  242. 
*  Williams,  'Fiji,'  voL  i  pp.  212-3.  3  Seemann,  '  Viti,'  p.  179. 


GROWTH  AND   DECLINE  OF  CULTURE.  173 

to  five  gallons.  Near  these  are  a  cord  for  binding  fuel,  a  skewer 
for  trying  cooked  food,  and,  in  the  better  houses,  a  wooden  fork 
— a  luxury  which,  probably,  the  Fijian  enjoyed  when  our  worthy 
ancestors  were  wont  to  take  hot  food  in  their  practised  finders.  " 1 
But  whether  the  use  of  the  fork  in  eating  came  about  in  Fiji  as 
a  consequence  of  the  common  use  of  stewed  food,  or  from  some 
more  occult  cause,  it  seems  probable  that  their  use  of  it  and  ours 
m.iy  spring  from  two  independent  inventions.  That  they  got 
the  art  of  pottery  from  Asia  is  indeed  likely  enough,  but  there 
seems  very  little  ground  for  thinking  that  the  eating-fork  came 
to  them  from  Asia,  or  from  anywhere  else. 

If  an  art  can  be  found  existing  in  one  limited  district  of  the 
world,  and  nowhere  else,  there  seems  to  be  ground  for  assuming 
that  it  was  invented  by  the  people  among  whom  it  is  found,  with 
much  greater  confidence  than  if  it  appears  in  several  distant 
places.  Any  one,  however,  who  thinks  this  an  unfair  inference, 
may  console  himself  with  the  knowledge  that  ethnologists  seldom 
get  a  chance  of  using  it  at  present,  except  for  very  trifling  arts 
or  for  unimportant  modifications.  Indeed,  any  one  who  claims 
a  particular  place  as  the  source  of  even  the  smallest  art,  from  the 
mere  fact  of  finding  it  there,  must  feel  that  he  may  be  using  his 
own  ignorance  as  evidence,  as  though  it  were  knowledge.  It  is 
certainly  playing  against  the  bank,  for  a  student  to  set  up  a 
claim  to  isolation  for  any  art  or  custom,  not  knowing  what 
evidence  there  may  be  against  him,  buried  in  the  ground,  hidden 
among  remote  tribes,  or  contained  even  in  ordinary  books,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  thousands  of  volumes  of  forgotten  histories 
and  travels. 

Among  the  inventions  which  it  seems  possible  to  trace  to  their 
original  districts,  is  the  hammock,  which  is  found,  as  it  were, 
riiuive  in  a  great  part  of  South  America  and  the  West  Indies, 
and  is  known  to  have  spread  thence  far  and  wide  over  the  world, 
carrying  with  it  its  Haitian  name,  hamac. 

The  boomerang  is  a  peculiar  weapon,  and  moreover  there  are 
found  beside  it  in  its  country,  Australia,  intermediate  forms 
between  it  and  the  battle-axe  or  pick;  so  that  there  is  ground 
for  considering  it  a  native  invention  developed  through  such 

1  Williams,  vol.  i.  p.  133. 


176  GROWTH  AND   DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

stages  into  its  most  perfect  form.  Various  Old  World  missiles 
have  indeed  been  claimed  as  boomerangs ;  a  curved  weapon  shown 
on  the  Assyrian  bas-reliefs,  the  throwing-cudgel  of  the  Egyptu 
fowler,  the  African  lissdn  or  curved  club,  the  iron  kungamungt 
of  the  Tibbus,  but  without  proof  being  brought  forward  that 
these  weapons,  or  the  boomerang-like  iron  projectiles  of  the 
Niam-Nam,  have  either  of  the  great  peculiarities  of  the  boome- 
rang, the  sudden  swerving  from  the  apparent  line  of  flight,  or 
the  returning  to  the  thrower.  The  accounts  given  by  Colonel 
Lane  Fox  in  his  instructive  lectures  (1868-9)  at  the  Unit 
Service  Institution,1  of  the  missiles  of  the  indigenous  tribes  of 
India,  whirled  in  the  manner  of  boomerangs  to  bring  down  game, 
seem  to  me  to  furnish  evidence  similar  to  that  from  Australia, 
of  the  local  and  gradual  invention  of  weapons.  Sir  Walter  Elliot 
describes  the  rudest  kind  in  the  South  Mahratta  district  as  mere 
crooked  sticks,  and  hence  we  trace  the  instrument  up  to  the 
katuria  of  the  Kulis  of  Gujerat,  a  weapon  resembling  the  boome- 
rang in  shape,  and  in  being  an  edged  flat  missile,  preserving  its 
plane  of  rotation,  but  differing  from  it  in  being  too  thick  and 
heavy  to  swerve  or  return.  While  admitting  the  propriety  of 
Colonel  Lane  Fox's  classification  of  the  Indian  and  Australian 
weapons  together,  I  think  we  may  regard  their  specific  difference 
as  showing  independent  though  partly  similar  development  in 
the  two  districts.  Mr.  Samuel  Ferguson  has  written  a  very 
learned  and  curious  paper2  on  supposed  European  analogues  of 
the  boomerang,  in  concluding  which  he  remarks,  not  untrul", 
that  "  many  of  the  foregoing  inferences  will,  doubtless,  appear 
in  a  high  degree  speculative."  As  might  be  expected,  he  makes 
the  most  of  the  obscure  description  of  the  cateia,  set  down  about 
the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century  by  Bishop  Isidore  of 
Seville.3  But  what  is  far  more  to  the  purpose,  Mr.  Ferguson 
seems  to  have  made  trial  of  a  carved  club  of  ancient  shape,  and 
some  hammer-  and  cross- shaped  weapons,  such  as  may  have  been 
used  in  Europe,  and  to  have  made  them  fly  with  something  of 

1  Lane  Fox,  'Primitive  Warfare,'  in  Journ.  Royal  United  Service  Inst 

*  S.  Ferguson,  in  Trans.  R.  I.  A.  ;  Dublin,  1843,  vol.  xix. 

*  "  Est  enim  genus  Gallici  teli  ex  materia  quhm  maxime  lenta,  quse  jacta  quMem 
non  longe  propter  gravitatem  evdat :  Bed  quo  pervenit,  vi  nimia  perfringit  :  quod  ai 
ab  artifice  mittatur  :  rursum  redit  ad  eum,  qui  misit,"  etc.     (Isid.  Origg.  xviii.  7.) 


GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE.  177 

the  returning  flight  of  the  hoomerang.  On  the  whole,  it  would 
be  rash  to  assert  that  the  principle  of  the  boomerang  was  quite 
unknown  in  the  Old  World.  Another  remarkable  weapon,  the 
b-das,  seems  to  be  isolated  in  the  particular  region  of  South 
America  where  it  was  found  in  use,  and  was  therefore  very  likely 
invented  there;  but  its  principle  is  known  also  among  the  Esqui- 
maux, whose  thin  thongs,  weighted  \\ith  bunches  of  ivory  knobs, 
are  arranged  to  wind  themselves  round  the  bird  they  are  thrown 
at,  in  much  the  same  way  as  the  much  stouter  cords,  weighted 
at  the  ends  with  two  or  three  heavy  stone  balls,  which  form  the 
bolas  of  the  Southern  continent. 

A  few  more  instances  may  be  given,  rather  for  their  quaint- 
ness  than  for  their  importance.  The  Australians  practise  an 
ingenious  art  in  bee-hunting,  which  I  have  not  met  with  any- 
where else.  The  hunter  catches  a  bee,  and  gums  a  piece  of 
down  to  it,  so  that  it  can  fly  but  slowly,  and  he  can  easily 
follow  it  home  to  the  hive,  and  get  the  honey.  The  North 
American  bee-hunters  do  not  use  this  contrivance,  but  they  put 
a  bait  of  honey  on  a  flat  stone  and  surround  it  with  a  ring  of 
thick  white  paint,  across  which  the  bee  crawls  to  take  flight 
from  the  edge  of  the  stone,  and  at  once  clogs  and  marks  itself.1 
Again,  there  is  the  curious  art  of  changing  the  colour  of  a  live 
macaw's  feathers  from  blue  or  green  to  brilliant  orange  or 
yellow,  by  plucking  them  and  rubbing  some  liquid  into  the 
skin  (it  is  said  the  milky  secretion  from  a  small  frog  or  toad), 
which  causes  the  new  feathers  to  grow  with  a  changed  colour.2 
This  is  done  in  South  America,  but,  so  far  as  I  know,  not  else- 
where ;  and  it  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that  it  was  invented 
there.  Travellers  in  the  Malay  Peninsula  and  Sumatra  de- 
scribe the  thrilling  effect  of  the  tones,  as  of  flutes  and  organs, 
that  seem  to  grow  out  of  the  air  as  they  approach  some  hamlet, 
sometimes  single  and  interrupted  notes  rising,  swelling  into  a 
burst  of  harmony,  and  dying  away.  These  sounds  are  produced 
by  bamboos  fixed  up  in  the  trees,  slit  between  the  joints  so  that 

1  Lang,  p.  328.  Backhouse,  Austr.,  p.  380.  J.  G.  "Wood,  in  'Boy's  Own  Slag.' 
vol.  v.  p.  526. 

-  Wallace,  '  Travels  on  the  Amazon  and  Rio  Negro  ; '  London,  1853,  p.  294.  De 
la  Condamine,  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  xiv.  p.  248.  Dolrizhoffer,  voL  i.  p.  327. 

8 


178         GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

each  bamboo  becomes  an  vEolian  flute  of  many  tones.1  This 
beautiful  habit  may  well  be  of  native  origin.  But  it  is  curious 
to  compare  it  "with  an  early  South  American  description  from 
the  province  of  Picara,  now  in  Columbia.  There,  at  the  entrances 
of  the  caciques'  houses,  were  platforms  surrounded  with  stout 
canes,  on  which  (in  the  fashion  of  the  Dayaks)  were  set  up 
heads  of  enemies,  "  looking  fierce  with  long  hair,  and  their  faces 
painted  in  such  sort  as  to  appear  like  those  of  devils.  In  the 
lower  part  of  the  canes  there  are  holes  through  which  the  wind 
can  pass,  and  when  it  blows,  there  is  a  noise  which  sounds  like 
the  music  of  devils."  8 

When  an  art  is  practised  upon  some  material  which  belongs 
exclusively,  or  in  a  large  degree,  to  the  place  where  the  art  is 
found,  the  probability  that  it  was  invented  on  the  spot  becomes 
almost  a  certainty.  No  one  would  dispute  the  claim  of  the 
Peruvians  or  Chilians  to  have  discovered  the  use,  for  manure, 
of  the  huanu,  or,  as  we  call  it,  "  guano,"  which  their  excep- 
tionally rainless  climate  has  allowed  to  accumulate  on  their 
coasts,  nor  the  claim  of  the  dwellers  in  the  hot  regions  near 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  have  found  out  how  to  make  their 
chocollatl  from  a  native  plant. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  .tribes  are  found  living  among  the 
very  materials  which  are  turned  to  account  by  simple  arts  else- 
where, and  yet  are  ignorant  of  those  arts,  we  have  good  ethno- 
logical evidence  as  to  their  condition  when  they  first  settled  in 
the  place  where  we  become  acquainted  with  them.  In  investi- 
gating the  difficult  problem  of  Polynesian  civilization,  this  state 
of  things  often  presents  itself,  not  uniformly,  but  in  a  partial, 
various  way,  that  gives  us  a  glimpse  here  and  there  of  the 
trains  of  events  that  must  have  taken  place,  in  different  times 
and  places,  to  produce  the  complex  result  we  have  before  us. 
It  is  clear  that  a  Malay  o -Polynesian  culture,  proved  by  the 
combined  evidence  of  language,  mythology,  arts,  and  customs, 
has  spread  itself  over  a  great  part  of  the  Southern  Islands,  from 
the  Philippines  down  to  New  Zealand,  and  from  Easter  Island  to 

1  Logan,  in  'Journ.  Ind.  Archip.,'  vol.  iii.  p.  35.  Cameron,  'Malayan  India,' 
p.  120. 

-  Cieza  de  Leon,  'Travels  '  (Tr.  and  Ed.  by  Markham),  Hakluyt  Soc.  1861,  p.  81. 


GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE.  179 

Madagascar,  though  the  pure  Malayo-Polynesian  race  only  forms 
a  part  of  the  population  of  the  district  in  which  its  language  and 
civilization  more  or  less  predominate.  The  original  condition  of 
the  Malayo-Polynesian  family,  as  determined  hy  the  state  of  its 
lower  members,  presents  us  with  few  arts  not  found  at  least  in  a 
rudimentary  state  in  Australia,  though  these  arts  were  developed 
with  immensely  greater  skill  and  industry.  In  most  of  the 
South  Sea  Islands  there  was  no  knowledge  of  pottery,  nor  of  the 
art  of  boiling  food  in  vessels  over  a  fire.  Great  part  of  the  race 
was  strictly  in  the  stone  age,  knowing  nothing  of  metals.  The 
sugar-cane  grew  in  Tahiti,  but  the  natives  only  chewed  it,  know- 
ing nothing  of  the  art  of  sugar-making ;'  nor  did  they  make  any 
use  of  the  cotton  plant,  though  it  grew  there.*  The  art  of 
weaving  was  unknown  in  most  of  the  islands  away  from  Asia. 
Though  the  coco-nut  palm  was  common,  they  did  not  tap  it  for 
toddy ;  and  Dr.  Seemann  taught  the  Fijians  the  art  of  extracting 
sago  from  their  native  sago-palms.3 

In  other  districts,  however,  a  very  different  state  of  things 
was  found.  In  Sumatra  and  other  islands  near  Asia,  and  in 
Madagascar,  iron  was  smelted  and  worked  with  much  skill. 
The  simplest  kind  of  loom  had  appeared  in  the  Eastern  Archi- 
pelago, only,  as  the  evidence  seems  to  show,  to  be  supplanted 
by  a  higher  kind.4  Pottery  was  made  there,  and  even  far  into 
Polynesia,  as  in  the  Fiji  Islands.  All  these  things  were  pro- 
bably introduced  from  Asia,  to  which  country  so  very  large  a 
part  of  the  present  Malay  culture  is  due,  but  there  are  local  arts 
found  cropping  up  in  different  groups  of  islands,  which  may  be 
considered  as  native  inventions  peculiar  to  Polynesia.  Thus,  in 
some  of  the  islands,  it  was  customary  to  keep  bread-fruit  by 
fermenting  it  into  a  sour  paste,  in  which  state  it  could  be  stored 
away  for  use  out  of  season,  an  art  of  considerable  value.  This 
paste  was  called  mahi  in  Tahiti,  where  Captain  Cook  first  saw 
it  prepared,  but  it  would  seem  to  have  been  invented  at  a  period 
since  the  part  of  the  race  which  went  to  the  Sandwich  Islands 

1  Cook,  First  Voy-  H.,  vol.  ii.  p.  186.     So  the  Birmese,  Bastian,  'Oestl.  Asien.,' 
vol.  ii.p.  99  ;  see  also  W.  Gr.  Palgrave,  'Central  and  Eastern  Arabia,' vol.  ii.  p.  156. 

2  J.  R.  Forster,  Observations  (Cook's  Second  Voy.)  ;  London,  1778,  p.  384. 
*  Seemann,  pp.  291,  329.  *  Marsden,  p.  183. 

x  2 


180  GROWTH   AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE, 

wore  separated  from  the  Tahitians,  for  the  Sandwich  Islanders 
knew  nothing  of  it  till  the  English  brought  it  to  them  from 
Tahiti.1  The  use  of  the  intoxicating  liquor  known  as  ava,  kura, 
or  yangona,  appears  to  be  peculiar  to  Polynesia,  and  therefore 
probably  to  have  been  invented  there.  It  is  true  that  the  usual, 
though  not  universal  practice  of  preparing  it  by  chewing,  gives 
it  some  resemblance  to  liquors  so  prepared  on  the  American 
continent,  but  these  latter  are  of  an  entirely  different  character, 
being  fermented  liquors  of  the  nature  of  beer,  made  from 
vegetables  rich  in  starch,  while  the  ava  is  not  fermented  at  all, 
the  juice  of  the  plant  it  is  made  from  being  intoxicating  in  its 
fresh  state.1 

The  miscellaneous  pieces  of  evidence  given  in  this  chapter 
have  been  selected  less  as  giving  grounds  for  arguments  safe 
from  attack,  than  as  examples  of  the  sort  of  material  with  which 
the  ethnologist  has  to  deal.  The  uncertainty  of  many  of  the 
inferences  he  makes  must  be  counterbalanced  by  their  number, 
and  by  the  concurrence  of  independent  lines  of  reasoning  in 
favour  of  the  same  view.  But  in  the  arguments  given  here  in 
illustration  of  the  general  method,  only  one  side  of  history  has 

1  Cook's  First  Voy.  H.,  vol.  ii.  p.  198  ;  Third  Voy.,  vol.  iii.  p.  141. 

°  The  etymology  of  kava  or  ava  is  of  interest.  Its  original  meaning  may  have 
been  that  of  bitterness  or  pungency  ;  kawa,  N.  Z  =  pungent,  bitter,  strong  (as 
spirits,  etc.);  'ara,  Tab.  =a  bitter,  disagreeable  taste;  kava,  Rar.  Hang.  Xuk., 
'a'ava,  Sam.,  awa  awa,  Haw.  =sour,  bitter,  pungent.  Thence  the  name  may 
have  been  given,  not  only  to  the  plant  of  which  the  intoxicating  drink  is  made, 
the  Macropiper  methysticum,  kara,  Tong.  Rar.  Nuk.  ;  'ara,  Sam.  Tah.  Haw.  ; 
but  also  in  N.  Z.  to  the  Macropiper  cxcelsum,  or  kawa  kawa,  and  in  Tahiti  to 
tobacco,  'ava  'ava.  Lastly,  the  drink  is  named  in  Tahiti  and  in  other  islands  from 
the  plant  it  is  expressed  from.  But  Mariner's  Tongan  vocabulary  seems  to  go  the 
other  way  ;  area  =  the  pepper  plant ;  also  the  root  of  this  plant,  of  which  is  made  a 
peculiar  kind  of  beverage,  etc.  ;  caicna  —  bitter,  brackish,  also  intoxicated  with  cava, 
or  anything  else.  This  looks  as  though  the  name  of  the  plant  gave  a  name  to  the 
quality  of  bitterness,  as  we  say  "  peppery  "  in  the  sense  of  hot.  (See  the  Vocabu- 
laries of  Mariner,  Hale,  Buschmann,  and  the  Church  Miss.  Soc.,  N.  Z.)  Southey 
(Hist,  of  Brazil,  vol.  i.  p.  245)  compares  the  word  kava  with  the  South  American 
word  caou-in  or  kaawij,  a  liquor  made  from  maize  or  the  mandioc  root  by  chewing, 
boiling  with  water,  and  fermenting  ;  but  the  idea  of  bitterness  or  pungency  is  unsuit- 
able to  this  liquor.  Bias  (Die.  da  Lingua  Tupy)  gives  perhaps  a  more  accurate  form, 
cauim=rvinho,  a  derivative  perhaps  from  cau  =  beber  (vinho).  To  show  how  easily 
•uch  accidental  coincidences  as  that  of  kava  and  cauim  may  be  found,  a  German 
root  may  be  pointed  out  for  both,  looking  a*  suitable  as  though  it  were  a  real  one, 
kaufn,  to  chew. 


GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE.  181 

been  kept  in  view,  and  the  facts  have  been  treated  generally  a3 
evidence  of  movement  only  in  a  forward  direction,  or  (to  define 
more  closely  what  is  here  treated  as  Progress)  of  the  appearance 
and  growth  of  new  arts  and  new  knowledge,  whether  of  a  profit- 
able or  hurtful  nature,  developed  at  home  or  imported  from 
abroad.  Yet  we  know  by  what  has  taken  place  within  the  range 
of  history,  that  Decline  as  well  as  Progress  in  art  and  knowledge 
really  goes  on  in  the  world.  Is  there  not  then  evidence  forth- 
coming to  prove  that  degradation  as  well  as  development  has 
happened  to  the  lower  races  beyond  the  range  of  direct  history  ? 
The  known  facts  bearing  on  this  subject  are  scanty  and  obscure, 
but  by  examining  some  direct  evidence  of  Decline,  it  may  be 
perhaps  possible  to  form  an  opinion  as  to  what  indirect  evidence 
there  may  probably  be,  and  how  it  is  to  be  treated ;  though 
actually  to  find  this  and  use  it,  is  a  very  different  matter. 

There  are  developments  of  Culture  which  belong  to  a  par- 
ticular climate  or  a  particular  state  of  society,  which  require  a 
despotic  government,  a  democratic  government,  an  agricultural 
life,  a  life  in  cities,  a  state  of  continued  peace  or  of  continued 
war,  an  accumulation  of  wealth  which  exceeds  what  is  wanted 
for  necessaries  and  is  accordingly  devoted  to  luxury  and  refine- 
ment, and  so  forth.  Such  things  are  all  more  or  less  local  and 
unstable.  The  Chinese  do  not  make  now  the  magnificent 
cloisonne  enamels  and  the  high-class  porcelain  of  their  ances- 
tors ;  we  do  not  build  churches,  or  even  cast  church-bells,  as 
our  forefathers  did.  In  Egypt  the  extraordinary  development 
of  masonry,  goldsmiths'  work,  weaving,  and  other  arts  which 
rose  to  such  a  pitch  of  excellence  there  thousands  of  years  ago, 
have  died  out  under  the  influence  of  foreign  civilizations  which 
contented  themselves  with  a  lower  level  of  excellence  in  these 
things,  and  there  seems  to  be  hardly  a  characteristic  native  art 
of  any  importance  practised  there,  unless  it  be  the  artificial 
hatching  of  eggs,  and  even  this  is  found  in  China.  As  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  writes  in  his  'Fragment  on  Mummies,'  "Egypt 
itself  is  now  become  the  land  of  obliviousness  and  doteth. 
Her  ancient  civility  is  gone,  and  her  glory  hath  vanished  as 
a  phantasma.  Her  youthful  days  are  over,  and  her  face  hath 
become  wrinkled  and  tetrick.  She  poreth  not  upon  the  heavens, 


182         GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

astronomy  is  dead  unto  her,  and  knowledge  maketh  other 
cycles." 

The  history  of  Central  America  presents  a  case  somewhat 
like  that  of  Egypt.  The  not  uncommon  idea  that  the  deserted 
cities,  Copan,  Palenque,  and  the  rest,  are  the  work  of  an  extinct 
and  quite  unknown  race,  does  not  agree  with  the  published 
evidence,  which  proves  that  the  descendants  of  the  old  builders 
are  living  there  now,  speaking  the  old  languages  that  were 
spoken  before  the  Spanish  Conquest.  The  ancient  cities,  with 
their  wonders  of  masonry  and  sculpture,  are  deserted,  the  special 
native  culture  has  in  great  measure  disappeared,  and  the  people 
have  been  brought  to  a  sort  of  low  European  civilization ;  but  a 
mass  of  records,  corroborated  in  other  ways,  show  us  the  Central 
Americans  before  the  Conquest,  building  their  great  cities  and 
living  in  them,  cultivating,  warring,  sacrificing,  much  like  their 
neighbours  of  Mexico,  with  whose  civilization  their  own  was 
intimately  allied.  An  epitome  of  the  fate  of  the  ruined  cities 
may  be  given  in  the  words  which  conclude  a  remarkable  native 
document  published  in  Quiche  and  French  by  the  Abbe  Brasseur, 
— "  Ainsi  done  e'en  est  fait  de  tous  ceux  du  Quiche,  qui  s'appelle 
Santa-Cruz."  The  ruins  of  the  great  city  of  Quiche  are  still  to 
be  seen;  Santa  Cruz,  its  successor,  is  a  poor  village  of  two 
thousand  souls,  a  league  or  so  away.1 

Among  the  lower  races,  degeneration  is  seen  to  take  place  as  a 
result  of  war,  of  oppression  by  other  tribes,  of  expulsion  into  less 
favourable  situations,  and  of  various  other  causes.  But  arts 
which  belong  to  the  daily  life  of  the  man  or  the  family  and 
cannot  be  entirely  suppressed  by  violent  interference,  do  not 
readily  disappear  unless  superseded  by  some  better  contrivance, 
or  made  unnecessary  or  very  difficult  by  a  change  of  life  and 
manners.  When  the  use  of  metals,  of  pottery,  of  the  flint  and 
steel,  of  higher  tools  and  weapons,  once  fairly  establishes  itself, 
a  falling  back  appears  to  be  uncommon.  The  Metal  Age  does 
not  degenerate  into  the  Stone  Age  except  under  very  peculiar 
circumstances.  The  history  of  a  higher  weapon  is  generally  that 
it  supplants  those  that  are  less  serviceable,  to  be  itself  supplanted 
by  something  better.  We  read  of  the  Indian  orator  who  ex- 

1  Brasseur,  'Popol  Vuh  ; '  pp.  345-7.     See  also  Diego  de  Landa,  Rel. 


GROWTH  AXD   DECLINE  OP   CULTURE.  183 

hortecl  his  brethren  to  cast  away  the  flint  and  steel  of  the  white 
man,  and  to  return  to  the  fire-sticks  of  their-  ancestors,  and  of 
the  Chinese  sage  desiring  to  discard  the  art  of  writing,  and  return 
to  the  ancestral  method  of  record  by  knotted  cords,  but  such 
things  are  rather  talked  of  than  done. 

^  Cases  of  savage  arts  being  superseded  by  a  higher  state  of 
civilization  are  common  enough.  An  African  guide,  or  an  Aus- 
tralian, will  know  a  man  by  his  footmark,  while  we  hardly  know 
what  a  footmark  is  like  ;  at  least,  nine  Englishmen  out  of  ten 
of  the  shoe-wearing  classes  will  not  know  that  the  footprints  in 
the  Mexican  picture- writings,  as  copied  in  Fig.  16,  are  true  to 


Jf 


nature,  till  they  have  looked  at  the  print  of  a  wet  foot  on  a  board 
or  a  flagstone.  Captain  Burton  remarked,  on  his  road  to  the 
great  Salt  Lake,  that  bones  and  skulls  of  cattle  were  left  lying 
scattered  about,1  though  travellers  are  often  put  to  great  straits 
for  fuel.  The  Gauchos  of  South  America  know  better,  for  when 
they  kill  a  beast  on  a  journey,  they  use  the  bones  as  fuel  to  cook 
the  flesh,2  as  the  Scythians  did  in  the  time  of  Herodotus ;  living 
in  a  country  wanting  wood,  they  made  a  fire  of  the  bones  of  the 
beasts  sacrificed,  and  boiled  the  flesh  over  it  in  a  kettle,  or  if 
that  were  not  forthcoming,  in  the  paunch  of  the  animal  itself, 
"  and  thus  the  ox  boils  himself,  and  the  other  victims  each  the 
like."3 

It  sometimes  happens  that  degeneration  is  caused  by  conquest, 
when  the  conquering  race  is  in  anything  at  a  lower  level  than 

1  Burton,  '  City  of  the  Saints,'  p.  60.  "  Dai-win,  Journal,  p.  194. 

3  Herod.,  iv.  61.     See  Ezokiel  xxiv.   5  in  LXX.     Klemm,  C.  G.,  voL  ii.  p.  229 
(bones  rubbed  with  fat  burnt  by  Esquimaux). 


184         GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

the  conquered.  There  is  one  art  whose  history  gives  some  ex- 
traordinary cases  of  this  kind  of  decline,  the  art  of  irrigation  by 
watercourses.  "NViihin  a  few  years  o^ne  people,  the  Spaniards, 
conquered  two  nations,  the  Moors  and  the  Peruvians,  who  were 
skilful  irrigators,  and  had  constructed  great  works  to  bring  water 
from  a  distance  to  fertilize  the  land.  These  works  were  for  the 
most  part  allowed  to  go  to  rack  and  ruin,  and  in  Peru,  as  in 
Andalusia,  great  tracts  of  land  which  had  been  fruitful  gardens 
fell  back  into  parched  deserts  ;  while  in  Mexico  the  ruins  of  the 
great  native  aqueduct  of  Tetzcotzinco  tell  the  same  tale.  Here, 
as  in  the  irrigation  of  British  India  under  our  own  rule,  the 
results  of  higher  culture  in  the  conquered  race  declined  in  the 
face  of  a  lower  culture  of  the  conquerors,  but  the  sequel  is  still 
more  curious.  The  Spaniards  in  America  became  themselves 
great  builders  of  watercourses,  and  their  works  of  this  kind  in 
Mexico  are  very  extensive,  and  of  great  benefit  to  the  drier 
regions  where  they  have  been  constructed.  But  when  a  portion 
of  territory  that  had  been  under  Spanish  rule  was  transferred  to 
the  United  States,  what  the  Spaniards  had  done  to  the  irrigating 
works  of  the  Moors  and  Peruvians,  the  new  settlers  did  to  theirs. 
In  Froebel's  time  they  were  letting  the  old  works  go  to  ruin ; 
thus  history  repeats  itself.1 

The  disappearance  of  savage  arts  in  presence  of  a  higher  civili- 
zation is  however  mostly  caused  by  their  being  superseded  by 
something  higher,  and  this  can  hardly  be  called  a  decline  of 
culture,  which  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  physical  and 
moral  decline  of  so  many  tribes  under  the  oppression  and 
temptation  of  civilized  men.  Real  decline  often  takes  place 
when  a  rude  but  strong  race  overcomes  a  cultivated  but  weak 
race,  and  of  this  we  have  good  information ;  but  neither  this 
change,  nor  that  which  takes  place  in  the  savage  in  presence 
of  the  civilized  invader,  gives  the  student  of  the  low  races 
all  the  information  he  needs.  What  he  wants  besides  is  to 
put  the  high  races  out  of  the  question  altogether,  and  to 
find  out  how  far  a  low  race  can  lose  its  comparatively  simple 
arts  and  knowledge,  without  these  being  superseded  by  some- 
thing higher ;  in  fact,  how  far  such  a  race  can  suffer  pure 
1  Tjlor,  'Mexico,'  pp.  157-161. 


GROWTH  AND   DECLINE  OF  CULTURE.  185 

decline  in  culture.     This   information  is,  however,  very  hard 
to  get. 

Livingstone's  remarks  on  the  Bakalahari  of  South  Africa 
show  us  a  race  which  has  fallen  in  civilization,  but  this  fall  has 
happened,  partly  or  wholly,  through  causes  acting  from  without. 
The  great  Kalahari  desert  is  inhabited  by  two  races,  the  Bush- 
men, who  were  perhaps  the  first  human  inhabitants  of  the 
country,  and  who  never  cultivate  the  soil,  or  rear  any  domestic 
animals  but  dogs,  and  the  Ba-Kalahari,  who  are  degraded 
Bechuanas.  These  latter  are  traditionally  reported  to  have 
once  possessed  herds  of  cattle  like  the  other  Bechuanas,  and 
though  their  hard  fate  has  forced  them  to  live  a  life  much  like 
that  of  the  Bushmen,  they  have  never  forgotten  their  old  ways. 
They  hoe  their  gardens  annually,  though  often  all  they  can  hope 
for  is  a  supply  of  melons  and  pumpkins.  And  they  carefully 
rear  small  herds  of  goats,  though  Livingstone  has  seen  them 
obliged  to  lift  water  for  them  out  of  small  wells  with  a  bit  of 
ostrich  egg-shell,  or  by  spoonfuls.1  This  remarkable  account 
brings  out  strongly  the  manful  struggle  of  a  race  which  has 
been  brought  down  by  adverse  circumstances,  to  keep  up  their 
former  civilization,  while  the  Bushmen,  who,  for  all  we  know, 
may  never  have  been  in  a  higher  condition  than  they  are  now, 
make  no  such  effort.  If  we  may  judge  these  two  races  by  the 
same  standard,  the  Bushmen  are  either  no  lower  than  they  have 
ever  been,  or  if  they  have  come  down  from  a  condition  approach- 
ing that  of  the  Bechuanas,  the  process  of  degradation  must 
indeed  have  been  a  long  one. 

Tribes  who  are  known  to  have  once  been  higher  hi  the  scale 
of  culture  than  they  are  now,  are  to  be  met  with  in  Asia.  Some 
of  the  coast  Tunguz  live  by  fishing,  though  they  are  still  called 
Orochi,  which  is  equivalent  to  the  term  "  Eeindeer  Tunguz." 
No  doubt  the  tradition  is  true  of  the  Goldi  that,  though  they 
have  no  reindeer  now,  they  once  had,  like  the  Tunguz  tribes 
north  of  the  Amur.2  There  are  Calmucks  north  of  the 
Caspian  who  have  lost  their  herds  of  cattle  and  degenerated  into 
fishermen.  The  richest  of  them  has  still  a  couple  of  cows. 
They  look  upon  horses,  camels,  and  sheep  as  strange  and 

1  Livingstone,  p.  49.  3  Rayenstein,  p.  318. 


186  GEOWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

•wondrous  creatures  when  foreigners  bring  them  into  their 
country.  They  listen  with  wonder  to  their  old  men's  stories 
of  life  in  the  steppes,  of  the  great  herds  and  the  ceaseless 
wanderings  over  the  vast  plains,  while  they  themselves  dwell 
in  huts  of  reeds,  and  carry  their  household  goods  on  their  backs 
when  they  have  to  move  to  a  new  fishing  place.1  The  miserable 
"  Digger  Indians  "  of  North  America  are  in  part  Shoshonees  or 
Snake  Indians,  who  were  brought  down  to  their  present  state 
by  their  enemies  the  Blackfeet,  who  got  guns  from  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company,  and  thus  conquered  the  Snakes,  and  took  away 
their  hunting  grounds.  They  lead  a  wandering  life,  lurking 
among  hills  and  crags,  slinking  from  the  sight  of  whites  and 
Indians,  and  subsisting  chiefly  on  wild  roots  and  fish,  and  such 
game  as  so  helpless  a  race  is  able  to  get.  They  are  lean  and 
abject-looking  creatures,  deserving  the  name  of  gens  de  pitie 
given  them  by  the  French  trappers,  and  they  have  been  driven 
to  abandon  arts  which  they  possessed  in  their  more  fortunate 
days,  such  as  riding,  and  apparently  even  hut-building;  but  how 
far  their  degradation  has  brought  with  it  decline  in  other  parts 
of  their  former  culture,  it  is  not  easy  to  say.2 

Here,  then,  we  have  cases  of  material  evidence  which,  as 
we  happen  to  have  other  means  of  knowing,  ought  to  be  treated 
as  recording  decline.  The  sculptures  and  temples  of  Central 
America  are  the  work  of  the  ancestors  of  the  present  Indians, 
though  if  history,  tradition,  and  transitional  work  had  all 
perished,  it  would  hardly  be  thought  so.  The  gardening  of 
the  Bakalahari,  if  the  account  of  their  origin  is  to  be  received, 
is  a  proof,  not  of  an  art -gained,  but  of  a  higher  level  of  civiliza- 
tion for  the  most  part  lost. 

It  thus  appears  that,  in  the  abstract,  when  there  is  found 
among  a  low  tribe  an  art  or  a  piece  of  knowledge  which  seems 
above  their  average  level,  three  ways  are  open  by  which  its 
occurrence  may  be  explained.  It  may  have  been  invented  at 
home,  it  may  have  been  imported  from  abroad,  or  it  may  be  a 
relic  of  a  higher  condition  which  has  mostly  suffered  degradation, 

1  Klemm,  C.  GK,  vol.  iii.  p.  4. 

3  Buschmann,  '  Spuren  der  Aztekischen  Sprache  im  nordlichen  Mexico,'  etc.,  etc. 
(Abh.  derK.  A.  v.  W.,  1854)  ;  Berlin,  18c9,  p.  633,  etc. 


GROWTH  AND   DECLINE  OF  CULTURE  187 

like  the  column  of  earth  which  the  excavator  leaves  to  measure 
the  depth  of  the  ground  he  has  cleared  away. 

Ethnologists  have  sometimes  taken  arts  which  appeared  to 
them  too  advanced  to  fit  with  the  general  condition  of  their 
possessors,  and  have  treated  them  as  belonging  to  this  latter 
class.  But  where  such  arguments  have  had  no  aid  from  direct 
history,  but  have  gone  on  mere  inspection  of  the  arts  of  the 
lower  races,  all  that  I  can  call  to  mind,  at  least,  seem  open  to 
grave  exception. 

Thus  the  boomerang  has  been  adduced  as  proof  that  the 
Australians  were  once  in  a  far  higher  state  of  civilization.1  It 
is  true  that  the  author  who  argued  thus  confounded  the  boome- 
rang with  the  throwing-cudgel,  or,  as  a  Hampshire  man  would 
call  it,  the  sqiioyle,  of  the  Egyptian  fowler,  so  that  he  had  at 
least  an  imaginary  high  civilization  in  view,  of  which  the  boome- 
rang was  an  element.  But,  as  has  been  mentioned,  intermediate 
forms  between  the  boomerang  and  the  war-club  or  pick,  are 
known  in  Australia,  a  state  of  things  which  fits  rather  with 
growth  than  with  degeneration.2 

In  South  America,  Humboldt  was  so  struck  with  the  cylinders 
of  very  hard  stone,  perforated  and  sculptured  into  the  forms  of 
animals  and  fruits,  that  he  founded  upon  them  the  argument 
that  they  were  relics  of  an  ancient  civilization  from  which  their 
possessors  had  fallen.  "  But  it  is  not,"  he  says,  "  the  Indians 
of  our  own  day,  the  dwellers  on  the  Oronoko  and  the  Amazons 
whom  we  see  in  the  last  degree  of  brutalization,  who  have  per- 
forated substances  of  such  hardness,  giving  them  the  shapes  of 
animals  and  fruits.  Such  pieces  of  work,  like  the  pierced  and 
sculptured  emeralds  found  in  the  Cordilleras  of  New  Granada 
and  Quito,  indicate  a  previous  civilization.  At  present  the 
inhabitants  of  these  districts,  especially  of  the  hot  regions,  have 
so  little  idea  of  the  possibility  of  cutting  hard  stones  (emerald, 
jade,  compact  felspar,  and  rock  crystal),  that  they  have  imagined 
the  green  stone  to  be  naturally  soft  when  taken  out  of  the 
ground,  and  to  harden  after  it  has  been  fashioned  by  hand."3 

1  W.  Cooke  Taylor,  The  Nat.  Hist,  of  Society ;  London,  1840,  vol.  i.  p.  205. 

3  See  Eyre,  vol.  ii.  p.  308  ;  Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  i.  p.  316,  pi.  vii.     Lane  Fox,  1.  c. 

s  Humboldt    &  Bonpland,  vol.    ii.    p.    4S1,   etc.     It  is  a  fact   that  some   stone 


188  GROWTH  AND   DECLINE  OF   CULTURE. 

But  while  mentioning  Humboldt's  argument,  it  must  also  be 
said  that  he  had  not  had  an  opportunity  of  learning  how  these 
ornaments  were  made.  Mr.  Wallace  has  since  found  that  at 
least  plain  cylinders  of  imperfect  rock  crystal,  ftnir  to  eight 
inches  long,  and  one  inch  in  diameter,  are  made  and  perforated 
by .  very  low  tribes  on  the  Eio  Negro.  They  are  not,  as 
Humboldt  seems  to  have  supposed,  the  result  of  high  mechani- 
cal skill,  but  merely  of  the  most  simple  and  savage  processes, 
carried  on  with  that  utter  disregard  of  time  that  lets  the  Indian 
spend  a  month  in  making  an  arrow.  They  are  merely  ground 
down  into  shape  by  rubbing,  and  the  perforating  of  the  cylinders, 
crosswise  or  even  lengthwise,  is  said  to  be  done  thus : — a  pointed 
flexible  leaf-shoot  of  wild  plantain  is  twirled  with  the  hands 
against  the  hard  stone,  till,  with  the  aid  of  fine  sand  and  water, 
it  bores  into  and  through  it,  and  this  is  said  to  take  years  to  do. 
Such  cylinders  as  the  chiefs  wear  are  said  sometimes  to  take 
two  men's  lives  to  perforate.1  The  stone  is  brought  from  a 
great  distance  up  the  river,  and  is  very  highly  valued.  It  is, 
of  course,  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  these  rude  Indians  came 
of  themselves  to  making  such  ornaments;  they  may  have 
imitated  things  made  by  races  in  a  higher  state  of  culture ;  but 
the  evidence,  as  it  now  stands,  does  not  go  for  much  in  proving 
that  the  tribes  of  the  Rio  Negro  have  themselves  fallen  from  a 
higher  level. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  much  easier  to  go  on  pointing  out 
arts  practised  by  the  less  civilized  races,  which  seem  to  have 
their  fitting  place  rather  in  a  history  of  progress  than  of 
degeneration.  This  remark  applies  to  the  case  just  mentioned, 
of  the  intermediate  forms  between  the  boomerang  and  the  war- 
club  being  found  in  Australia,  as  though  to  mark  the  stages 
through  which  the  perfect  instrument  had  been  developed. 
Several  such  cases  occur  among  the  arts  of  fire-making  and 
cooking  described  in  the  following  chapters.  To  glance  for  a 
moment  at  the  history  of  Textile  Fabrics  (into  which  I  hope  to 

IB  more  easily  worked  when  fresh  from  the  ground,  than  after  its  water  has 
evapo  rated. 

1  Wallace,  p.  278.  See  Ban,  '  Drilling  in  Stone  without  Metal,'  in  Smithsonian 
Report,  1868. 


GROWTH   AXD   DECLINE   OF  CULTURE. 


189 


go  more  fully  at  a  future  time),  it  may  be  noticed  that  the 
spindle  for  twisting  thread  has  heen  found  in  use  in  Asia 
Africa,  and  North  and  South  America,  among  people  whose 
ruder  neighbours  had  no  better  means  of  making  their  finest 
thread  or  cord  than  by  twisting  it  with  the  hand,  by  rolling  the 
fibres  with  the  palm,  on  the  thigh  or  some  other  parts  of  .the 
body.  Again,  though  every  known  tribe  appears  to  twist  cord, 
and  to  make  matting  or  wicker-work, 
the  combination  of  these  two  arts, 
weaving,  which  consists  in  matting 
twisted  threads,  is  very  far  from  being 
general  among  the  lower  races.  The 
step  seems  from  our  point  of  view  a 
very  simple  one,  but  a  large  propor- 
tion of  mankind  had  never  made  it. 
Now  there  is  a  curious  art,  which  is 
neither  matting  nor  weaving,  found 
among  tribes  to  whom  real  weaving 
was  unknown.  It  consists  in  laying 
bundles  of  fibres,  not  twisted  into  real 
cord,  side  by  side,  and  tying  or  fasten- 
ing them  together  with  transverse 
cords  or  bands ;  varieties  of  fabrics 
made  in  this  way  are  well  known  in 
New  Zealand  and  among  the  Indians 
of  North -Western  America;  and  Mr. 
Henry  Christy  pointed  out  to  me  a 
sack-like  basket  made  in  this  way, 
which  he  found  in  use  in  1856  among 
an  Indian  tribe  N.  W.  of  Lake  Huron,  a  very  good  example  of 
this  interesting  transition-work.  Nor  do  we  look  in  vain  for 
such  a  fabric  in  Europe ;  it  is  found  in  the  Lake  Habitations  of 
Switzerland.  M.  Troyon's  work  shows  a  specimen  from  Wangen, 
which  belongs  to  the  Stone  Age.1  Mr.  John  Evans  has  three 
specimens  of  fabrics  from  the  Swiss  Lakes,  which  form  a  series 
of  great  interest.  The  first  (Fig.  17)  is  also  from  Wangen,  and, 
to  use  the  description  accompanying  the  sketches  he  has  kindly 

1  Troyon,  « Habitations  Lacustres;'  Lausanne,  1860,  pi.  vii.  fig.  24,  pp.  43,  429,  465. 


Fig.  17. 


gigj&jg  :i$B 


190         GROWTH  AND  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE. 

given  me,  "  the  wrarp  consists  of  strands  of  un-twisted  fibre 
(hemp  ?)  bound  together  at  intervals  of  about  an  inch  apart  by 
nearly  similar  strands  '  wattled  in '  among  them."  The  next 
specimen  (Fig.  18),  from  Nieder-Wyl,  shows  a  great  advance, 
for  "the  warp  consists  of  twisted  string, 
and  the  woof  of  a  finer  thread  also  twisted." 
The  third  specimen  is  a  piece  of  ordinary 
plain  weaving.  Now  all  these  things, 
European,  Polynesian,  and  American,  seem 
to  be  in  their  natural  and  reasonable  places 
in  a  progress  upward,  but  it  is  hard  to 
imagine  a  people,  under  any  combination  of 
circumstances,  dropping  down  from  the  art 
of  weaving,  to  adopt  a  more  tedious  and 
Fi  ~  less  profitable  way  of  working  up  the  fibre 

which  it  had  cost  them  so  much  trouble  to 
prepare ;  knowing  the  better  art,  and  deliberately  devoting  their 
material  and  time  to  practising  the  worse.  So  it  is  a  very  reason- 
able and  natural  thing,  that  tribes  who  had  been  used  to  twist 
their  thread  by  hand,  should  sometimes  overcome  their  dislike 
to  change,  and  adopt  the  spindle  when  they  saw  it  in  use ;  or 
such  a  tribe  might  be  supposed  capable  of  inventing  it ;  but  the 
going  back  from  the  spindle  to  hand-twisting  is  a  thing  scarcely 
conceivable.  A  spindle  is  made  too  easily  by  anyone  who  has 
once  caught  the  idea  of  it ;  a  stick  and  a  bit  of  something  heavy 
for  a  whorl  is  the  whole  machine.  Not  many  months  ago,  an 
old  lady  was  seen  in  the  isle  of  Islay,  comfortably  spinning  her 
flax  with  a  spindle,  which  spindle  was  simply  a  bit  of  stick  with 
a  potato  stuck  on  the  end  of  it. 

To  conclude,  the  want  of  evidence  leaves  us  as  yet  much  in 
the  dark  as  to  the  share  which  decline  in  civilization  may  have 
had  in  bringing  the  lower  races  into  the  state  in  which  we  find 
them.  But  perhaps  this  difficulty  rather  affects  the  history  of 
particular  tribes,  than  the  history  of  Culture  as  a  whole.  To 
judge  from  experience,  it  would  seem  that  the  world,  when  it  has 
once  got  a  firm  grasp  of  new  knowledge  or  a  new  art,  is  very 
loth  to  lose  it  altogether,  especially  when  it  relates  to  matters 
important  to  man  in  general,  for  the  conduct  of  his  daily  life, 


GROWTH  AXD  DECLINE  OF  CULTURE.  101 

and  the  satisfaction  of  his  daily  wants,  things  that  come  home 
to  men's  "  business  and  bosoms."  An  inspection  of  the  geo- 
graphical distribution  of  art  and  knowledge  among  mankind, 
seems  to  give  some  grounds  for  the  belief  that  the  history  of 
the  lower  races,  as  of  the  higher,  is  not  the  history  of  a  course 
of  degeneration,  or  even  of  equal  oscillations  to  and  fro,  but  of 
a  movement  which,  in  spite  of  frequent  stops  and  relapses,  has 
on  the  whole  been  forward ;  that  there  has  been  from  age  to 
age  a  growth  in  Man's  power  over  Nature,  which  no  degrading 
influences  have  been  able  permanently  to  check. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

THE  STONE  AGE— PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

THE  Stone  Age  is  that  period  in  the  history  of  mankind  during 
which  stone  is  habitually  used  as  a  material  for  weapons  and 
tools.  Antiquaries  find  it  convenient  to  make  the  Stone  Age 
cease  whenever  metal  implements  come  into  common  use,  and 
the  Bronze  Age,  or  the  Iron  Age,  supervenes.  But  the  last 
traces  of  a  Stone  Age  are  hardly  known  to  disappear  anywhere, 
in  spite  of  the  general  use  of  metals ;  and  in  studying  this 
phase  of  the  world's  history  for  itself,  it  may  be  considered  as 
still  existing,  not  only  among  savages  who  have  not  fairly  come 
to  the  use  of  iron,  but  even  among  civilized  nations.  Wherever 
the  use  of  stone  instruments,  as  they  were  used  in  the  Stone 
Age  proper,  is  to  be  found,  there  the  Stone  Age  has  not  entirely 
passed  away.  The  stone  hammers  with  which  tinkers  might  be 
found  at  work  till  lately  in  remote  districts  in  Ireland,1  the  huge 
stone  mallets  with  wooden  handles  which  are  still  used  in  Ice- 
land for  driving  posts  and  other  heavy  hammering,2  and  the 
lancets  of  obsidian  with  which  the  Indians  of  Mexico  still  bleed 
themselves,  as  their  fathers  used  to  do  before  the  Spanish  Con- 
quest,3 are  stone  implements  which  have  survived  for  centuries 
the  general  introduction  of  iron. 

Alere  natural  stones,  picked  up  and  used  without  any  artificial 
shaping  at  all,  are  implements  of  a  very  low  order.  Such 
natural  tools  are  often  found  in  use,  being  for  the  most  part 
slabs,  water-worn  pebbles,  and  other  stones  suited  for  hammers 
and  anvils,  and  their  employment  is  no  necessary  proof  of  a  very 

1  Wilde,  Cat  of  Mus.  of  R.  I.  Acad. ;  Dublin,  1857,  p.  80. 

5  Klemm,  '  Allgemeine  Culturwissenschaft ; '  Leipzig,  1855-8,  part  ii.  p.  86. 

•  Brasseur,  'Mexique,'  voL  iii.  p.  640. 


THE   STOXE   AGE  -PAST  AND   PRESENT.  193 

low  state  of  culture.  Among  the  lower  races,  Dr.  Milligan  gives 
a  good  instance  of  their  use,  in  describing  the  shell-mounds  left 
by  the  natives  on  the  shores  of  Van  Diemen's  Land.  In  places 
where  the  shells  found  are  univalves,  round  stones  of  different 
sizes  are  met  with  ;  one,  the  larger,  on  which  they  broke  the 
shells  ;  the  other,  and  smaller,  having  served  as  the  hammer  to 
break  them  with.  But  where  the  refuse-mounds  consist  of 
oysters,  mussels,  cockles,  and  other  bivalves,  their  flint-knives, 
used  to  open  them  with,  are  generally  found.1  Sir  George  Grey's 
description  of  the  sites  of  native  encampments,  so  frequently  met 
with  in  Australia,  will  serve  as  another  example.  The  remains 
of  such  an  encampment  consist  of  a  circle  of  large  flat  stones 
arranged  round  the  place  where  the  fire  has  been  ;  on  each  of  the 
flat  stones  a  smaller  stone  for  breaking  shell-fish  ;  beside  each 
pair  of  stones  a  large  shell  used  for  a  cup,  and,  scattered  all 
around,  broken  shells  and  bones  of  kangaroos.2 

Nor  are  cases  hard  to  find  of  the  use  of  these  very  low  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Stone  Age  carried  up  into  higher  levels  of 
civilization.  Thus  the  tribes  of  Central  and  Southern  Africa, 
though  often  skilful  in  smiths'  work,  have  not  come  thoroughly 
to  the  use  of  the  iron  hammer  and  anvil.  Travellers  describe 
them  as  forging  their  weapons  and  tools  with  a  stone  of  handy 
shape  and  size,  on  a  lump  of  rock  which  serves  as  an  anvil ; 
while  sometimes  an  iron  hammer  is  used  to  give  the  last  finish.3 
The  quantities  of  smooth  rolled  pebbles  found  in  our  ancient 
English  hill-forts  were  probably  collected  for  sling-stones ;  but 
larger  pebbles,  very  likely  used  as  cracking- stones,  are  found  in 
early  European  graves.4  At  the  present  day,  the  inhabitants  of 
Heligoland  and  EUgen  not  only  turn  to  account  the  natural  net- 
sinkers  formed  by  chalk-flints,  out  of  which  the  remains  of  a 
sponge,  or  such  thing,  has  been  washed,  leaving  a  convenient 
hole  through  the  flint  to  tie  it  by  ;  but  they  have  been  known  to 
turn  such  a  perforated  flint  into  a  hammer,  by  fixing  a  handle  in 
the  hole.5  And  lastly,  the  women  who  shell  almonds  in  the 

1  Milligan,  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc. ;  London,  1863,  vol.  ii.  p.  123. 

2  Grey,  Journals,  vol.  i.  pp.  71,  109. 

3  Casalis,  p.  131  ;    Petherick,    p.    395  ;    Burton,   Central    Africa,  vol.  ii.  p.  312  ; 
Backhouse,  Africa,  p.  377.  4  Kioinui,  U.  V,'.,  part  ii.  p.  87. 

6  Klemm,  C.  W.,  part  ii.  p.  12. 


104        THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

south  of  France  still  use  a  smooth  water-worn  pebble  (coul'Je, 
coif  doit),  as  their  implement  for  breaking  the  shells. 

The  distinction  between  natural  and  artificial  implements  is  of 
no  practical  value  in  estimating  the  state  of  culture  of  a  Stone- 
Age  tribe.  A  natural  chip  or  fragment  of  stone  may  have  been 
now  and  then  used  as  an  edged  or  pointed  tool ;  bat  we  have  not 
the  least  knowledge  of  any  tribe  too  low  habitually  to  shape  such 
instruments  for  themselves.  There  is,  however,  a  well-marked 
line  of  distinction  in  the  Stone  Age  which  divides  it  into  a  lower 
and  a  higher  section.  The  art  of  implement-making  is  in  a  low 
stage  among  tribes  who  use  stone  instruments,  but  are  not  in 
the  habit  of  grinding  or  polishing  any  of  them.  There  are 
remains  which  clearly  prove  the  existence  of  such  tribes,  and 
thus  the  Stone  Age  falls  into  two  divisions,  the  Unground  Stone 
Age  and  the  Ground  Stone  Age.1 

To  the  former  and  ruder  of  these  two  classes  belong  the  in- 
struments of  the  Drift  or  Quaternary  deposits,  and  of  the  early 
bone  caves,  and,  in  great  part  at  least,  those  of  the  Scandinavian 
shell-heaps  or  kjokkennicddings.  Even  should  a  few  ground 
instruments  prove  to  belong  to  these  deposits,  the  case  would  not 
be  much  altered,  for  the  finding  of  hundreds  of  unground  imple- 
ments unmixed  with  ground  ones  would  still  show  a  vast  pre- 
dominance of  chipping  over  grinding,  which  would  justify  their 
being  classed  in  an  Ungrouud  Stone  Age,  quite  distinct  from  the 
Ground  Stone  Age  in  which  modern  tribes  have  generally,  if  not 
al.vays,  been  found  Irving. 

The  rude  flint  implements  found  in  the  drift  gravels  of  the 
Quaternary  (i.  e.  Post- Tertiary)  series  of  strata,  belong  to  the 
earliest  known  productions  of  human  art.  Since  the  long  un- 
appreciated labours  of  M.  Boucher  de  Perthes  showed  the  histo- 
rical importance  of  these  relics,  the  date  of  the  first  appearance 
of  man  on  the  earth  has  been  much  debated.  I  have  no  purpose 
of  attempting  to  discuss  the  collection  of  geological  and  anti- 
quarian fact  and  argument  brought  forward  in  Sir  Charles  L veil's 
'  Antiquity  of  Man,'  not  only  with  reference  to  the  men  of  the 

1  Sir  John  Lubbock,  in  his  admirable  treatise  on  primaeval  antiquities  ('  Pre- 
Historic  Times ;'  London,  1865,  2nd  ed.,  1S69),  has  now  introduced  the  terms 
Palaiulithic  aiid  1,'eolituic  to  designate  the  two  great  divLiuiis  of  the  Stone  Age. 


THE   STONE  AGE — PAST  AND   PRESENT.  193 

drift  period,  but  to  those  of  the  hone  caves,  and  of  the  early  shell- 
heaps  and  peat-hogs.  But  it  may  he  remarked  that  geological 
evidence,  though  capable  of  showing  the  lapse  of  vast  periods  of 
time,  has  scarcely  admitted  of  these  periods  being  brought  into 
definite  chronological  terms  ;  yet  it  is  only  geological  evidence 
that  has  given  any  basis  for  determining  the  absolute  date  at 
which  the  makers  of  the  drift  implements  lived  in  France  and 
England.  In  an  elaborate  paper  published  in  1864,  Mr.  Prest- 
wich  infers,  from  the  time  it  must  have  taken  to  excavate  the 
river-valleys,  even  under  conditions  much  more  favourable  than 
now  to  such  action,  and  to  bore  into  the  underlying  strata  the 
deep  pipes  or  funnels  now  found  lined  with  sand  and  gravel,  that 
a  very  long  period  must  have  elapsed  since  the  implement-bear- 
ing beds  began  to  be  laid  down.  But  his  opinion  is  against 
extreme  estimates,  and  favours  the  view  that  the  now  undoubted 
contemporaneity  of  man  with  the  mammoth,  the  Rhinoceros 
tichorhinits,  etc.,  is  rather  to  be  accounted  for  by  considering 
that  the  great  animals  continued  to  live  to  a  later  period  than 
had  been  supposed,  than  that  the  age  of  man  on  earth  is  to  be 
stretched  to  fit  with  an  enormous  hypothetical  date.  Mr.  Prest- 
wich  thus  sums  up  his  view  of  the  subject,  "  That  we  must 
greatly  extend  our  present  chronology  with  respect  to  the  first 
existence  of  man  appears  inevitable  ;  but  that  we  should  count 
by  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  is,  I  am  convinced,  in  the 
present  state  of  the  inquiry,  unsafe  and  premature."1 

A  set  of  characteristic  drift  implements2  would  consist  of  certain 
tapering  instruments  like  huge  lance-heads,  shaped,  edged,  and 
pointed,  by  taking  off  a  large  number  of  facets,  in  a  way  which 
shows  a  good  deal  of  skill  and  feeling  for  symmetry ;  smaller 
leaf-shaped  instruments;  flints  partly  shaped  and  edged,  but  with 
one  end  left  unwrought,  evidently  for  holding  in  the  hand ;  scnipers 
with  curvilinear  edges;  rude  flake-knives,  etc.  Taken  as  a  \\holr, 
such  a  set  of  types  would  be  very  unlike,  for  instance,  to  a  set  of 
chipped  instruments  belonging  to  the  comparatively  late  period 

1  Prestwich,  On  the  Geological  Position  and  Age  of  the  Flint-Implement-Bearing 
Beds,  etc.  (from  Phil.  Trans.)  ;  London,  1864.  See  A.  Tylor,  On  the  Amiens  Gravel, 
in  Journ.  Geol.  Soc.,  Hay,  1867. 

•  See  Evans,  '  Flint  Implements  in  the  Drift ;'  London,  1862. 

o  2 


106        THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

of  the  cromlechs  in  France  and  England.  But  a  comparison  of 
particular  types  with  what  is  found  elsewhere,  breaks  down  any 
imaginary  line  of  severance  between  the  men  of  the  Drift  and 
the  rest  of  the  human  species.  The  flake  knives  are  very  rude, 
but  they  are  like  what  are  found  elsewhere,  and  there  is  no  break 
in  the  series  which  ends  in  the  beautiful  specimens  from  Mexico 
and  Scandinavia.  The  Tasmanians  sometimes  used  for  cutting 
or  notching  wood  a  very  rude  instrument.  Eye-witnesses  describe 
how  they  would  pick  up  a  suitable  flat  stone,  knock  off  chips 
from  one  side,  partly  or  all  round  the  edge,  and  use  it  without 
more  ado ;  and  there  is  a  specimen  corresponding  exactly  to  this 
description  in  the  Taunton  Museum.  An  implement  found  in 
the  Drift  near  Clermont  would  seem  to  be  much  like  this.  The 
Drift  tools  with  a  chipped  curvilinear  edge  at  one  end,  which  were 
probably  used  for  dressing  leather  and  other  scraping,  are  a  good 
deal  like  specimens  from  America.  The  leaf-shaped  instruments 
of  the  Drift  differ  principally  from  those  of  the  Scandinavian 
shell-heaps,  and  of  America,  in  being  made  less  neatly  and  by 
chipping  off  larger  flakes;  and  there  are  leaf- shaped  instruments 
which  were  used  by  the  Mound-Builders  of  North  America, 
perhaps  for  fixing  as  teeth  in  a  war-club  in  Mexican  fashion,1 
which  differ  rather  in  finish  than  in  shape  from  the  Drift  speci- 
mens. Even  the  most  special  type  of  the  Drift,  namely,  the 
pointed  tapering  implement  like  a  great  spear-head,  differs  from 
some  American  implements  only  in  being  much  rougher  and 
heavier.  There  have  been  found  in  Asia  stone  implements 
resembling  most  closely  the  best  marked  of  the  Drift  types. 
Mr.  J.  E.  Taylor,  British  Consul  at  Basrah,  obtained  some  years 
ago  from  the  sun-dried  brick  mound  of  Abu  Shahrein  in  Southern 
Babylonia,  two  taper-pointed  instruments2  of  chipped  flint,  which, 
to  judge  from  a  cast  of  one  of  them,  would  be  passed  without 
hesitation  as  Drift  implements.  As  to  the  date  to  which  these 
remarkable  specimens  belong,  there  is  no  sufficient  evidence.  A 
stone  instrument,  found  in  a  cave  at  Bethlehem,  does  not  differ 
specifically  from  the  Drift  type.  To  these  must  be  added  the 
quartzite  implements  of  Drift  type  from  the  laterite  deposits  of 
Southern  India,  described  by  Mr.  K.  Bruce  Foote. 
1  Squier  &  Davis,  p.  21L  «  Vaux,  in  Proc.  Soc.  Ant.,  Jan.  19,  I860. 


THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND   PRESENT.  107 

With  the  Unground  Stone  Age  of  the  Drift,  that  of  the  Bone 
Caves  is  intimately  connected.  In  the  Drift,  geological  evidence 
shows  that  a  long  period  of  time  must  have  been  required  for 
the  accumulation  of  the  beds  which  overlie  the  flint  implements, 
and  the  cutting  out  of  the  valleys  to  their  present  state,  since 
the  time  when  the  makers  of  these  rude  tools  and  weapons  in- 
habited France  and  England  in  company  with  the  Rhinoceros 
tichorhinus,  the  mammoth,  and  other  great  animals  now  extinct. 
In  the  Bone  Caves  this  natural  calendar  of  strata  accumulated 
and  removed  is  absent,  but  their  animal  remains  border  on  the 
fauna  of  the  Drift,  and  the  Drift  series  of  stone  implements 
passes  into  the  Cave  series,1  so  that  the  men  of  the  Drift  may 
very  well  be  the  makers  of  some  Cave  implements  contempora- 
neous with  the  great  quaternary  mammals. 

The  explorations  made  with  such  eminent  skill  and  success  in 
the  caverns  of  Perigord  by  M.  Lartet  and  Mr.  Christy,2  bring  into 
view  a  wonderfully  distinct  picture  of  rude  tribes  inhabiting  the 
south  of  France,  at  a  remote  period  characterized  by  a  fauna 
strangely  different  from  that  at  present  belonging  to  the  district, 
the  reindeer,  the  aurochs,  the  chamois,  and  so  forth.  They  seem 
to  have  been  hunters  and  fishers,  having  no  domesticated  animals, 
perhaps  not  even  the  dog ;  but  they  made  themselves  rude  orna- 
ments, they  sewed  with  needles  with  eyes,  and  they  decorated 
their  works  in  bone,  not  only  with  hatched  and  waved  patterns, 
but  with  carvings  of  animals  done  with  considerable  skill  and 
taste.  Yet  their  stone  implements  were  very  rude,  to  a  great 
extent  belonging  to  absolute  Drift  types,  and  destitute  of  grind- 
ing, with  one  curious  set  of  exceptions,  certain  granite  pebbles 
with  a  smooth  hollowed  cavity,  some  of  which  resemble  stones 
used  by  the  Australians  for  grinding  something  in,  perhaps  paint 
to  adorn  themselves  with.  It  is  very  curious  to  find  these  French 
tribes  going  so  far  in  the  art  of  shaping  tools  by  grinding,  and 
yet,  so  far  as  we  know,  never  catching  the  idea  of  grinding  a 
celt. 

1  See,  for  instance,  W.  Boyd  Dawkins,  in  Proc.  Somersetshire  Archaaological  Soc., 
1861-2,  p.  197. 

2  H.  Christy,    in   Tr.    Eth.   Soc.r  vol.  iii.  p.   362.     Lartet  &  Christy,  'Eehquus 
Aquitaniae,'  (ed.  by  T.  R.  Jones,)  London,  1865,  etc. 


193  THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

The  stone  implements  of  the  Scandinavian  shell-heaps  are  a 
good  deal  like  those  of  the  Drift  and  the  Caves,  as  regards  their 
flint-flakes  and  leaf-shaped  instruments,  hut  they  are  characterized 
by  the  frequent  occurrence  of  a  kind  of  celt  which  is  not  a  Drift 
type.  It  is  rudely  shaped  from  the  flint,  the  natural  fracture  of 
which  gives  it  a  curved  form  which  may  be  roughly  compared  to 
that  of  a  man's  front  tooth,  if  it  tapered  from  root  to  edge.1 
Here,  also,  the  Unground  Stone  Age  prevails,  though  a  very  few 
specimens  of  higher  types  have  been  found.  I  may  quote  Mr. 
Christy's  opinion  that  the  thousands  of  characteristic  implements 
are  to  be  taken  as  the  standard  of  what  was  made  and  used,  while, 
as  has  very  often  happened  in  old  deposits  lying  in  accessible 
situations,  a  few  things  may  have  got  in  in  comparatively  modern 
times. 

Beside  the  want  of  grinding,  the  average  quality  of  the  instru- 
ments of  the  Unground  Stone  Age  is  very  low,  notwithstanding 
that  its  best  specimens  are  far  above  the  level  of  the  worst  of  the 
later  period.  These  combined  characters  of  rudeness  and  the 
absence  of  grinding  give  the  remains  of  the  Unground  Stone  Age 
an  extremely  important  bearing  on  the  history  of  Civilization, 
from  the  way  in  which  they  bring  together  evidence  of  great  rude- 
ness and  great  antiquity.  The  antiquity  of  the  Drift  implements 
is,  as  has  been  said,  proved  by  direct  geological  evidence.  The 
Cave  implements,  even  of  the  reindeer  period,  are  proved  by  their 
fauna  to  be  earlier,  as  they  are  seen  at  a  glance  to  be  ruder,  than 
th6se  of  the  cromlech  period  and  of  the  earliest  lake-dwellings 
of  Switzerland,  both  belonging  to  the  Ground  Stone  Age.  To 
the  student  who  views  Human  Civilization  as  in  the  main  an 
upward  development,  a  more  fit  starting  point  could  scarcely  be 
offered  than  this  wide  and  well-marked  progress  from  an  earlier 
and  lower,  to  a  later  and  higher,  stage  of  the  history  of  human 
art. 

To  turn  now  to  the  productions  of  the  higher  or  Ground  Stone 
Age,  grinding  is  found  rather  to  supplement  chipping  than  to 
supersede  it.  Implements  are  very  commonly  chipped  into  shape 
before  they  are  ground,  and  unfinished  articles  of  this  kind  are 

1  Lubbock  in  Nat.  Hist.  Review,  Oct.  1S61.  Morlot  in  Soc.  Yaudoise  des  Sc. 
Nat.,  1859. 


THE   STOXE  AGE— PAST  AND   PREi-::XT.  199 

often  found.  Moreover,  such  things  as  flake-knives,  and  heads 
for  spears  and  arrows,  have  seldom  or  never  been  ground  in  any 
period,  early  or  late,  for  the  obvious  reason  that  the  labour  of 
grinding  them  would  have  been  wasted,  or  worse.  This  ques- 
tion of  grinding  or  not  grinding  stone  implements  is  brought  out 
clearly  by  some  remarks  of  Captain  Cook's,  on  his  first  voyage 
to  the  South  Seas.  He  noticed  that  the  natives  of  Tahiti  used 
basalt  to  make  their  adzes  of,  and  these  it  was  necessary  to  sharpen 
almost  every  minute,  for  which  purpose  a  stone  and  a  coco-nut 
shell  full  of  water  were  kept  always  at  hand.  When  he  saw  the 
New  Zealanders  using,  for  the  finishing  of  their  nicest  work, 
small  tools  of  jasper,  chipped  off  from  a  block  in  sharp  angular 
pieces  like  a  gunfiiut,  and  throwing  them  away  as  soon  as  they 
were  blunted,  he  concluded  they  did  not  grind  them  afresh  because 
they  could  not.1  This,  however,  was  not  the  true  reason,  as 
their  grinding  jade  and  other  hard  stones  clearly  shows  ;  but  it 
was  simply  easier  to  make  new  ones  than  to  grind  the  old.  A 
good  set  of  implements  of  the  Ground  Stone  Age  will  consist 
partly  of  instruments  made  by  mere  chipping,  such  as  varieties 
of  spear-heads,  arrow-heads,  and  flake-knives,  and  partly  of 
ground  implements,  the  principal  classes  'of  which  are  celts, 
axes,  and  hammers. 

The  word  celt  (Latin  ccltis,  a  chisel)  is  a  convenient  term  for 
including  the  immense  mass  of  instruments  which  have  the  simple 
shape  of  chisels,  and  might  have  been  used  as  such.  Xo  doubt 
many  or  most  of  them  were  really  for  mounting  on  handles,  and 
using  as  adzes  or  axes;  but  in  the  absence  of  a  handle,  or  a  place 
for  one,  or  a  mark  where  one  has  been,  it  is  often  impossible  to 
set  down  any  particular  specimen  as  certainly  a  chisel,  an  a:;e,  or 
an  adze,  ^\'hen,  however,  the  cutting  edge  is  hollowed  as  in  a 
gouge,  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  use  it  as  an  axe,  though  it 
retains  the  other  two  possible  uses  of  chisel  and  ad/e.  The 
water-worn  pebble,  in  which  a  natural  edge  has  been  made 
straighter  and  sharper  by  grinding,  may  be  taken  as  the  original 
and  typical  form  of  the  celt,  llude  South  American  tribes  select 
suitable  water-worn  stones  and  rub  down  their  edges,  sometimes 
merely  grasping  them  in  the  hand  to  use  them,  and  sometimes 
1  Couk,  First  Voy.  H.,  vol.  ii.  p.  220  ;  vol.  iii.  p.  60. 


200        THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

mounting  them  in  a  wooden  handle;  and  axes  made  in  this  way, 
hy  grinding  the  edge  of  a  suitable  pebble,  and  fixing  it  in  a  withe 
handle,  are  known  in  Australia.  Moreover,  the  class  to  which 
this  almost  natural  instrument  belongs,  that,  namely,  which  has 
a  double-convex  cross  section,  is  far  more  numerous  and  univer- 
sally distributed  than  the  double-flat,  concavo-convex,  triangular, 
or  other  forms. 

Where  artificially  shaped  celts  are  found  only  chipped  over,  in 
high  Stone  Age  deposits,  as  in  Scandinavia,  they  are  generally 
to  be  considered  as  unfinished  ;  but  when  celts  of  hard  stone  are 
found  only  ground  near  the  edge,  and  otherwise  left  rough  from 
chipping,  they  may  be  taken  as  denoting  a  rude  state  of  art. 
Thus  flint  celts  ground  only  near  the  edge  are  found  in  Northern 
Europe,  and  even  in  Denmark :  but  in  general  celts  of  the  hardest 
stone  are  found,  during  the  Ground  Stone  Age,  conscientiously 
ground  and  polished  all  over,  and  every  large  celt  of  hard  stone 
which  is  finished  to  this  degree  represents  weeks  or  months  of 
labour,  done  not  so  much  for  any  technical  advantage,  as  for  the 
sake  of  beauty  and  artistic  completeness. 

The  primitive  hammer,  still  used  in  some  places,  is  an  oval 
pebble,  held  in  the  hand.  Above  this  comes  the  natural  pebble,  or 
the  artificially  shaped  stone,  which  is  grooved  or  notched  to  have 
a  bent  withe  fastened  round  it  as  a  handle,  as  our  smiths  mount 
heavy  chisels.  Above  this  again  is  the  highest  kind,  the  stone 
hammer  with  a  hole  through  it  for  the  handle.  This  is  not  found 
out  of  the  Old  World,  perhaps  not  out  of  Europe ;  and  even  the 
Mexicans,  who  in  many  things  rivalled  or  excelled  the  stone- 
workers  of  ancient  Europe,  do  not  seem  to  have  got  beyond 
grooving  their  hammers.  The  stone  axe  proper,  as  distinguished 
from  the  mere  celt  by  its  more  complex  shape,  and  by  its  being 
bored  or  otherwise  fitted  for  a  handle,  is  best  represented  in 
the  highest  European  Stone  Age,  and  in  the  transition  to  the 
Bronze  Age. 

Special  instruments  and  varieties  are  of  great  interest  to  the 
Ethnographer,  as  giving  individuality  to  the  productions  of  the 
Stone  Age  of  different  times  and  places.  Thus,  the  rude  trian- 
gular flakes  of  obsidian  with  which  the  Papuans  head  their 
spears  are  very  characteristic  of  thoir  race.  These  spears  were 


THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT.  201 

probably  what  they  were  using  in  Schouten's  time ;  "  long 
slaves  with  very  long  sharpe  things  at  the  ends  thereof,  which 
(us  we  thought)  were  finnes  of  black  fishes."1  Among  celts, 
the  Polynesian  adze  blade,  to  be  seen  in  almost  any  museum, 
is  a  well-marked  type  ;  as  is  the  American  double  hatchet,2  and 
an  elaborately -formed  American  knife.3  The  Pech's  knives  or 
Pict's  knives,  of  Shetland,  made  from  a  rock  with  a  slaty 
cleavage,  seem  peculiar.  They  appear  to  be  efficient  instru- 
ments, as  an  old  woman  was  seen  cutting  cabbage  with  one  not 
long  since. 

As  there  are  a  good  many  special  instruments  like  these  in 
different  parts  of  the  world,  the  idea  naturally  suggests  itself  of 
trying  to  use  them  as  ethnological  evidence,  to  prove  connexion 
or  intercourse  between  two  districts  where  a  similar  thing  is 
found.  For  instance,  among  the  most  curious  phenomena  in 
the  history  of  stone  implements  is  the  occurrence  of  one  of  the 
highest  types  of  the  Stone  Age,  the  polished  celt  of  green  jade, 
of  all  places  in  the  world,  in  Australia,  where  the  general  charac- 
ter of  the  native  stone  implements  is  so  extremely  low.  There  is 
a  quarry  of  this  very  hard  and  beautiful  stone  in  Victoria,  and  the 
natives  on  the  river  Glenelg  grind  it  into  double-convex  hatchet 
blades,  a  process  which  must  require  great  labour,  and  these 
blades  they  fix  with  native  thread  into  cleft  sticks,  and  use  them 
as  battle-axes.  Two  of  the  blades  in  question  are  in  the  Museum 
of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  in  Edinburgh,  presented  by  Dr. 
Mackay,  who  got  them  near  the  place  where  they  were  made. 
They  are  only  inferior  to  the  finest  celts  of  the  same  material 
from  New  Zealand,  in  wanting  the  accuracy  of  outline  which  the 
Maori  would  have  given,  and  the  conscientious  labour  with 
which  he  would  have  ground  down  the  whole  surface  till  every 
inequality  or. flaw  had  disappeared,  whereas  the  Australian  lias 
been  content  with  polishing  into  the  hollow  places,  instead  of 
grinding  them  out.  Were  we  obliged  to  infer,  from  the  presence 
of  these  high-class  celts  in  Australia,  that  the  natives  in  one 
part  of  the  country  had  themselves  developed  the  making  of 

1  Purchas,  vol.  i.  p.  95.  2  Schoolcraft,  part  ii.  pi.  48,  figs.  1  and  2. 

3  Id.,  part  ii.  pi.  45,  figs.  1-3.  Another  specimen  in  the  Edinburgh  Autiquane*' 
Museum,  presented  by  Dr.  Daniel  Wilson. 


202        THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

stone  implements  so  immensely  beyond  the  rest  of  thsir  race, 
while  thsy  remained  in  other  respects  in  the  same  low  state  of 
civilization,  the  quality  of  stone  implements  would  have  to  be 
pretty  much  given  up  as  a  test  of  culture  anywhere.  Fortu- 
nately there  is  an  easier  way  out  of  the  difficulty.  Polished 
instruments  of  this  green  jade  have  been,  long  ago  or  recently, 
one  of  the  most  important  items  of  manufacture  in  the  islands 
of  the  Indian  Ocean  and  the  Pacific,  and  the  South  Australians 
may  have  learnt  from  some  Malay  or  Polynesian  source  the  art 
of  shaping  these  high-class  weapons.  The  likelihood  of  this 
being  their  real  history  is  strengthened  by  proofs  we  have  of 
intercourse  between  Australia  and  the  surrounding  islands. 
Besides  the  known  yearly  visits  of  the  trepang -fishers  of 
Macassar  to  the  Gulf  of  Carpentaria,  and  the  appearance  of  the 
outrigger-canoe  in  East  Australia  in  Captain  Cook's  time,  there 
is  mythological  evidence  which  seems  to  carry  proof  of  connexion 
far  down  the  east  coast. 

Another  coincidence  in  patterns  of  weapons  said  to  come  from 
two  distant  regions  may  be  mentioned  here.  There  is  a  well- 
known  New  Zealand  weapon,  the  mere,  or  pi'itu- 
patu.  It  is  an  edged  club  of  bone  or  stone, 
which  has  been  compared  to  a  beaver's  tail,  or 
is  still  more  like  a  soda-water  bottle  with  the 
bulb  flattened,  and  it  is  a  very  effective  weapon 
in  a  hand-to-hand  fight,  a  man  being  often 
killed  by  one  thrust  with  its  sharp  end  against 
the  temple.  Through  the  neck  it  has  a  hole 
for  a  wrist-cord.  The  mere  is  made  of  the  bone 
of  a  whale,  or  of  stone,  and  the  finest,  which 
are  of  green  jade  and  worked  with  immense 
labour,  were  among  the  most  precious  heir- 
looms of  the  Maori  Chiefs.  One  would  think 
that  such  a  peculiar  weapon  was  hardly  likely 
to  be  made  independently  by  two  races ;  but  Klemm  gives  a 
drawing  of  a  sharp-edged  Peruvian  weapon,  of  dark  brown 
jasper,  which  is  so  exactly  like  the  New  Zealand  mere,  even  to 
the  wrist-cord,  that  a  single  drawing  of  one  of  the  latter,  shown 
in  front  and  profile  in  Fig.  19,  will  serve  for  both.  Another, 


THE   STONE   AGE — PAST   AND   PRESENT.  203 

stated  to  be  from  Cuzco,  of  a  greenish  amphibolic  stone,  is 
figured  by  Rivero  and  Tschudi,  curiously  enough,  in  company 
with  a  wooden  war-club  from  Tunga  in  Colombia,  which  is 
hardly  distinguishable  from  a  common  Polynesian  form.  If  we 
knew  of  any  connexion  between  the  civilizations  of  Peru  and  the 
South  Sea  Islands,  these  extraordinary  resemblances  might  be 
accounted  for  as  caused  by  direct  transmission.1 

When,  however,  their  full  value  has  been  given  to  the  dif- 
ferences in  the  productions  of  the  Ground  Stone  Age,  there 
remains  a  residue  of  a  most  remarkable  kind.  In  the  first 
place,  a  very  small  number  of  classes,  flake-knives,  scrapers, 
spear  and  arrow-heads,  celts  and  hammers,  take  in  the  great 
mass  of  specimens  in  museums  ;  and  in  the  second  place,  the 
prevailing  character  of  these  implements,  whether  modern  or 
thousands  of  years  old,  whother  found  on  this  side  of  the  world 
or  the  other,  is  a  marked  uniformity.  The  ethnographer  who 
has  studied  the  stone  implements  of  Europe,  Asia,  North  or 
South  America,  or  Polynesia,  may  consider  the  specimens  from 
the  district  he  has  studied,  as  types  from  which  those  of  other 
districts  differ,  as  a  class,  by  the  presence  or  absence  of  a  few 
peculiar  instruments,  and  individually  in  more  or  less  important 
details  of  shape  and  finish,  unless,  as  sometimes  happens,  they 
do  not  perceptibly  differ  at  all.  So  great  is  this  uniformity  in 
the  stone  implements  of  different  places  and  times,  that  it  goes 
far  to  neutralise  their  value  as  distinctive  of  different  races.  It 
is  clear  that  no  great  help  in  tracing  the  minute  histoiy  of  tha 
growth  and  migration  of  tribes,  is  to  be  got  from  an  arrow-head 
which  might  have  come  from  Patagonia,  or  Siberia,  or  the  Isle 
of.  Man,  or  from  a  celt  which  might  be,  for  all  its  appearance 
shows,  Mexican,  Irish,  or  Tahitian.*  If  an  observer,  tolerably 
acquainted  with  stone  implements,  had  an  unticketed  collection 
placed  before  him,  the  largeness  of  the  number  of  specimens 
which  he  would  not  confidently  assign,  by  mere  inspection,  to 
their  proper  countries,  would  serve  as  a  fair  measure  of  their 
general  uniformity.  Even  when  aided  by  mineralogical  know- 

1  Klemm,  C.  W.,  part.  ii.  p.  26  ;  Rivero  &  Tschudi.  Ant,  Per.  Plates,  pi.  xxxiil. 
The  opinion  of  Mr.  I'ruiks  that  these  supposed  South  American  weapons  are  re  illy 
Polynesian,  but  ticketed  by  mist.ke,  seems  the  moit  probable.  [Note  to  3rd  Edition.] 


204  THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

ledge,  often  a  great  help,  he  would  have  to  leave  a  large  fraction 
of  the  whole  in  an  unclassed  heap,  confessing  that  he  did  not 
know  within  thousands  of  miles  or  thousands  of  years,  where 
and  when  they  were  made. 

How,  then,  is  this  remarkahle  uniformity  to  be  explained  ? 
The  principle  that  man  does  the  same  thing  under  the  same 
circumstances  will  account  for  much,  but  it  is  very  doubtful 
whether  it  can  be  stretched  far  enough  to  account  for  even  the 
greater  proportion  of  the  facts  in  question.  The  other  side  of 
the  argument  is,  of  course,  that  resemblance  is  due  to  con- 
nexion, and  the  truth  is  made  up  of  the  two,  though  in  what 
proportions  we  do  not  know.  It  may  be  that,  though  the  pro- 
blem is  too  obscure  to  be  worked  out  alone,  the  uniformity  of 
development  in  different  regions  of  the  Stone  Age  may  some  day 
be  successfully  brought  in  with  other  lines  of  argument,  based  on 
deep-lying  agreements  in  culture,  which  tend  to  centralize  the 
early  history  of  races  of  very  unlike  appearance,  and  living  in 
widely  distant  ages  and  countries. 

To  turn  to  an  easier  branch  of  the  subject,  I  have  brought 
together  here,  as  a  contribution  to  the  history  of  the  Stone  Age, 
a  body  of  evidence  which  shows  that  it  has  prevailed  in  ancient 
or  up  to  modern  times,  in  every  great  district  of  the  inhabited 
world.  By  the  aid  of  this,  it  may  be  possible  to  sketch  at  least 
some  rude  outline  of  the  history  of  its  gradual  decline  and  fall, 
which  followed  on  the  introduction  of  metal  in  later  periods,  up 
to  our  own  times,  when  the  universal  use  of  iron  has  left  nothing 

O 

of  the  ancient  state  of  things,  except  a  few  remnants,  of  interest 
to  ethnologists  and  antiquaries,  but  of  no  practical  importance  to 
the  world  at  large. 

In  the  first  place,  there  are  parts  of  the  world  whose  inhabi- 
tants, when  they  were  discovered  in  modern  times  by  more  ad- 
vanced races,  were  found  not  possessed  of  metals,  but  using  stone, 
shell,  bone,  split  canes,  and  so  forth,  for  purposes  in  making 
tools  and  weapons  to  which  we  apply  metals.  Now  as  we  have 
no  evidence  that  the  inhabitants  of  Australia,  the  South  Sea 
Islands,  and  a  considerable  part  of  North  and  South  America, 
had  ever  been  possessed  of  metals,  it  seems  reasonable  to  consider 
these  districts  as  countries  where  original  Stone  Age  conditions 


THE  STOXE   AGE— PAST  AND   PRESENT.  20.") 

Lad  never  been  interfered  with,  until  they  came  \vithin  the  range 
of  European  discovery. 

But  in  other  parts  of  North,  and  South  America,  such  inter- 
ference had  already  taken  place  before  the  time  of  Columbus. 
The  native  copper  of  North  America  had  been  largely  used  by 
the  race  known  to  us  as  the  "  Mound  Builders,"  who  have  left 
as  memorials  of  their  existence  the  enormous  mounds  and  forti- 
fications of  the  Mississippi  Valley.1  They  do  not  seem  to  have 
understood  the  art  of  melting  copper,  or  even  of  forging  it  hot, 
but  to  have  treated  it  as  a  kind  of  malleable  stone,  which  they 
got  in  pieces  out  of  the  ground,  or  knocked  off  from  the  great 
natural  blocks,  and  hammered  into  knives,  chisels,  axes,  and 
ornaments.  The  use  of  native  copper  was  by  no  means  confined 
to  the  Mound  Builders,  for  the  European  explorers  found  it  in 
use  for  knives,  ice-chisels,  ornaments,  etc.,  in  the  northern  part 
of  the  Continent,  especially  among  the  Esquimaux  and  the 
Canadian  Indians.2  The  copper  which  Captain  Cook  found  hi 
abundance  among  the  Indians  of  Prince  William's  Sound,  was 
no  doubt  native.3  The  iron  used  for  arrow-heads  by  the  Indians 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Ptio  de  la  Plata  was  no  doubt  meteoric. 
This  has  been  found  in  use  among  the  Esquimaux.  There  is  a 
harpoon-point  of  walrus  tusk  in  the  British  Museum,  headed 
with  a  blade  of  meteoric  iron,  and  a  knife,  also  of  tusk,  which  is 
edged  by  fixing  in  a  row  of  chips  of  meteoric  iron  along  a  groove. 
But  these  instruments  do  not  appear  old ;  they  are  just  like 
those  in  which  the  Esquimaux  at  present  mount  morsels  of 
European  iron,  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  they  used  their 
native  meteoric  iron  until  their  intercourse  with  Europeans  in 
modern  times  had  taught  them  the  nature  and  use  of  the  metal. 
It  is  indeed  very  strange  that  there  should  be  no  traces  found 
among  them  of  knowledge  of  metal-work,  and  of  other  arts  which 
one  would  expect  a  race  so  receptive  of  foreign  knowledge  to  have 
got  from  contact  with  the  Northmen,  in  the  tenth  and  following 

1  See  Squier  &  Davis,  etc. 

2  Squier,  Abor.  Mon.  of  State  cf  N.  Y.,  Smithsonian  Contr. ;    Washington,  1851, 
pp.  176-7.     Sir  /.  Richardson,    'The  Polar  Regions;'    Edinburgh,   1861,  p.  308. 
Hakluyt,  vol.  lii.  p   230.     Kleram,  C.  G.,  vol.  ii.  p.  18. 

3  Cook,  Third  Voy.,  vol.  ii.  p.  380. 


208        THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

centuries ;  but  I  have  not  succeeded  in  finding  any  distinct 
evidence  of  the  kind. 

In  the  lower  part  of  the  Northern  Continent,  in  Peru  and  some 
other  districts  of  the  Southern,  the  Stone  Age  was  not  extinct  at 
the  time  of  Columbus ;  it  was  indeed  in  a  state  of  development 
hardly  surpassed  anywhere  in  the  world,  but  at  the  same  time 
several  metals  were  in  common  use.  Gold  and  silver  were 
worked  with  wonderful  skill,  but  chiefly  for  ornamental  purposes. 
Though  almost  all  the  gold  and  silver  work  of  Mexico  has  long 
ago  gone  to  the  melting-pot,  there  are  still  a  few  specimens  which 
show  that  the  Spanish  conquerors  were  not  romancing  in  the 
wonderful  stories  they  told  of  the  skill  of  the  native  goldsmiths. 
I  have  seen  a  pair  of  gold  eagle  ornaments  in  the  Berlin  Museum, 
which  will  compare  almost  with  the  Etruscan  work  for  design 
and  delicacy  of  finish.  But  what  is  still  more  important  is  that 
bronze,  made  of  well-judged  proportions  of  copper  and  tin,  was 
in  use  on  both  continents.  The  Peruvians  used  bronze,  and 
perhaps  copper  also,  for  tools  and  weapons.  The  Mexican  bronze 
axe-blades  are  to  be  seen  in  collections,  and  we  know  by  the 
picture-writings  that  both  the  Mexicans1  and  the  builders  of  the 
ruined  cities  of  Central  America,2  mounted  them  by  simply 
sticking  them  into  a  wooden  club,  as  the  modern  African  mounts 
his  iron  axe-blade.  The  little  bronze  bells  of  Mexico3  and  South 
America  are  cored  castings,  which  are  by  no  means  novice's 
work,  and  other  bronze  castings  from  the  latter  country  are  even 
more  remarkable.4 

How  the  arts  of  working  gold,  silver,  copper,  and  bronze  came 
into  America,  we  do  not  know,  nor  can  we  even  tell  whether 
their  appearance  on  the  Northern  and  Southern  Continent  was 
independent  or  not.  It  is  possible  to  trace  Mexican  connexion 
down  to  Nicaragua,  and  perhaps  even  to  the  Isthmus  of  Panama, 
while  on  the  other  hand  the  northern  inhabitants  of  South 
America  were  not  unacquainted  with  the  nations  farther  down  the 
continent.  But  no  certain  proof  of  connexion  or  intercourse  of 
any  kind  between  Mexico  and  Peru  seems  as  yet  to  have  been 

1  Mendoza  Codex,  in  Kingbborougli,  vol.  i. 

8  Dresden  Codex,  id.  3  Tylor,  '  Mexico  ; '  p.  236. 

4  Ewbank,  'Brazil ; '  New  York,  18^6,  pp.  454-4C3. 


THE   STONE  AGE — PAST  AND   PRESENT.  207 

made  out.  All  that  we  know  certainty  is  that  gold,  silver, 
copper,  tin,  and  bronze  had  there  intruded  themselves  among 
the  implements  and  ornaments  of  worked  stone,  though  they  had 
scarcely  made  an  approach  to  driving  them  out  of  use,  and  that 
the  traditions  of  boLh  continents  ascribed  their  higher  culture  to 
certain  foreigners  who  were  looked  upon  as  supernatural  beings. 
If  we  reason  upon  the  supposition  that  these  remarkably  unani- 
mous legends  may  perhaps  contain  historical,  in  combination 
with  mythical  elements,  the  question  suggests  itself,  where,  for 
a  thousand  or  fifteen  hundred  years  before  the  Spanish  discovery, 
were  men  to  be  found  who  could  teach  the  Mexicans  and  Peru- 
vians to  make  bronze,  and  could  not  teach  them  to  smelt  and 
work  iron  ?  The  people  of  Asia  seem  the  only  men  on  whose 
behalf  such  a  claim  can  be  sustained  at  all.  The  Massageta?  of 
Central  Asia  were  in  the  Bronze  Age  in  the  time  of  Herodotus, 
who,  describing  their  use  of  bronze  for  spear  and  arrow-heads, 
battle-axes,  and  other  things,  and  of  gold  rather  for  ornamental 
purposes,  remarks  that  they  make  no  use  of  iron  or  silver,  for 
they  have  none  in  their  country,  while  gold  and  bronze  abound.1 
Four  centuries  later,  Strabo  modifies  this  remark,  saying  that 
they  have  no  silver,  little  iron,  but  abundance  of  gold  and  bronze.2 
The  Tatars  were  in  the  Iron  Age  when  visited  by  mediaeval 
travellers,  and  the  history  of  the  transition  from  bronze  to  iron 
in  Central  Asia,  of  which  we  seem  to  have  here  a  glimpse,  is  for 
.the  most  part  obscure.  The  matter  is,  however,  the  more 
wor  Jiy  of  remark  from  its  bearing  on  the  argument  for  the  con- 
nexion of  the  culture  of  Mexico  and  that  of  Asia,  grounded  by 
Humboldt  on  the  similarities  in  the  mythology  and  the  calendar 
of  the  two  districts. 

If  we  now  turn  to  the  history  of  the  Stone  Age  in  Asia,  Africa, 
and  Europe,  we  shall  indeed  find  almost  everywhere  evidence  of 
a  Stone  Period,  which  preceded  a  Bronze  or  Iron  Period,  but 
this  is  only  to  be  had  in  small  part  from  the  direct  inspection  of 
races  living  without  metal  implements.  The  Kamchaduls  of 
north-eastern  Asia,  a  race  as  yet  ethnologically  isolated,  were 
found  by  the  Kosak  invaders  using  cutting-tools  of  stone  and 
bone.  It  is  recorded  that  with  these  instruments  it  took  them 
1  Herod.,  i.  215.  "  Strabo,  xi.  8,  6. 


208        THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

three  years  to  hollow  out  a  canoe,  and  one  year  to  scoop  out  one 
of  the  woocbn  troughs  in  which  they  cooked  their  food ; ]  but 
probably  a  large  allowance  for  exaggeration  must  be  made  in 
this  story.  It  is  curious  to  notice  that,  thirty  or  forty  years 
ago,  Erman  got  in  Kamchatka  one  of  the  Stone  Age  relics  found 
in  such  enormous  numbers  in  Mexico,  a  fluted  prism  of  obsidian, 
off  which  a  succession  of  stone  blades  had  been  flaked ;  but 
though  one  would  have  thought  that  the  comparatively  recent 
use  of  stone  instruments  in  the  country  would  have  been  still 
fresh  in  the  memory  of  the  people,  the  natives  who  dug  it  up 
had  no  idea  what  it  was.2  Stone  knives,  moreover,  have  been 
found  in  the  high  north-east  of  Siberia,  on  the  site  of  deserted 
yourts  of  modern  date,  said  to  have  been  occupied  by  the  settled 
Chukchi,  or  Shalags.8 

Chinese  literature  has  preserved  various  notices  of  the  finding 
and  use  of  stone  implements.  Such  is  a  passage  speaking  of 
arrows  with  stone  heads  sent  as  tribute  by  the  barbarians  in  the 
reign  of  Wu-Wang  (about  B.C.  1100),  and  two  which  mention 
the  actual  use  of  such  arrows  in  China,  whether  by  Chinese  or 
Tatars,  up  to  the  13th  century  of  our  era.4  Again,  referring  to 
Xnn-hiu-fu,  in  the  province  of  Kwan-tong,  in  Southern  China, 
it  is  stated,  "  They  find,  in  the  mountains  and  among  the  rocks 
which  surround  it,  a  heavy  stone,  so  hard  that  hatchets  and  other 
cutting  instruments  are  made  from  it."5  This  of  course  relates 
to  a  long  past  age,  and  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  China  is  not 
inhabited  only  by  the  race  usually  known  to  us  as  the  Chinese, 
but  by  another,  or  several  other  far  less  cultured  races ;  the 
mountains  of  Kwan-tong  and  the  other  southern  provinces  being 
especially  inhabited  by  such  rude  and  seemingly  aboriginal  tribes. 
There  is,  besides,  a  Chinese  tradition  speaking  of  the  use  of  stone 
for  weapons  among  themselves  in  early  times,  which  implies  at 
least  the  knowledge  that  this  is  a  state  of  things  characterizing 
a  race  at  a  low  stage  of  culture,  and  may  really  embody  a  recol- 
lection of  their  own  early  history.  Fu-hi,  they  say,  made  weapons ; 

1  Kracheninnikow,  p.  29.  *  Erman,  'Reise,'  vol.  iii.  p.  453. 

»  Sarytschew,  in  Coll.  of  Mod.  etc.,  Toy.  and  Tr.;  London,  1807,  vol.  v.  p.  35. 
4  A.  W.  Franks,  in  '  Trans,  of  the  Congress  of  Pre-historic  Archaeology  '  ^Norwich, 
1888).  p.  264. 

*  Cirosier,  '  De  la  Chine  ; '  Paris,  1818,  vol.  i.  p.  191. 


THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT.        209 

these  were  of  wood,  those  of  Shin-ruing  were  of  stone,  and  Chi-yu 
made  metal  ones.1 

Among  the  great  Tatar  race  to  which  the  Turks  and  Mongols, 
and  our  Hungarians,  Lapps,  and  Finns  belong,  accounts  of  a 
Stone  Age  may  be  found,  in  the  most  remarkable  of  which  the 
widely  prevailing  idea  that  stone  instruments  found  buried  in  the 
ground  are  thunderbolts,  is  very  well  brought  into  view.  In  the 
Chinese  Encyclopaedia  of  the  emperor  Kang-hi,  who  began  to 
reign  in  1662,  the  following  passage  occurs  : — 

'"Lightning -stones.' — The  shape  and  substance  of  lightning- 
stones  vary  according  to  place.  The  wandering  Mongols,  whether 
of  the  coasts  of  the  eastern  sea,  or  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Sha-mo,  use  them  in  the  manner  of  copper  and  steel.  There 
are  some  of  these  stones  which  have  the  shape  of  a  hatchet, 
others  that  of  a  knife,  some  are  made  like  mallets.  These 
lightning-stones  are  of  different  colours;  there  are  blackish  ones, 
others  are  greenish.  A  romance  of  the  time  of  the  Tang,  says 
that  there  was  at  Yu-men-si  a  great  Miao  dedicated  to  the 
Thunder,  and  that  the  people  of  the  country  used  to  make  offer- 
ings there  of  different  things,  to  get  some  of  these  stones.  This 
fable  is  ridiculous.  The  lightning- stones  are  metals,  stones, 
pebbles,  which  the  fire  of  the  thunder  has  metamorphosed  by 
splitting  them  suddenly  and  uniting  inseparably  different  sub- 
stances. There  are  some  of  these  stones  in  which  a  kind  of 
vitrification  is  distinctly  to  be  observed."2 

Moreover,  within  the  last  century  the  Tunguz  of  north-eastern 
Siberia,  belonging  to  the  same  Tatar  race,  were  using  stone 
arrow-heads,3  while  Tacitus  long  before  made  a  similar  remark 
as  to  their  relatives  the  Finns,  whose  "  only  hope  is  in  their 
arrows,  which,  from  want  of  iron,  they  make  sharp  with  bones." 
"  Sola  in  sagittis  spes,  quas,  inopia  ferri,  ossibus  asperant."4 
But  the  Tunguz  have  been  expert  iron-workers  as  long  as  we 
have  any  distinct  knowledge  of  them/  and  arrow-heads  of  stone 
and  bone  may  survive,  for  an  indefinite  number  of  centuries,  the 

1  Goguet,  vol.  iii.  p.  331. 

2  '  Memoires  concernant  1'Histoire,  etc.,  des  Chiaois,  par  les  Missionnaires  de  Pekin  ;' 
Paris,  1776,  etc.,  vol.  iv.  p.  474.     Klemm.  C.  G.,  vol.  vi.  p.  467. 

3  Ravenstein,  p.  4. 

4  Tao,  Germ.  xlvi. ;  and  see  Grimm,  G.  D.  S.,  vol.  i.  p.  173. 


210  THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND   PRESENT. 

main  part  of  the  Stone  Age  to  which  they  properly  belong. 
Even  the  Egyptians,  in  the  height  of  their  civilization,  used 
stone  arrow-heads  in  hunting,  notwithstanding  their  vast  wealth 
of  bronze  and  iron.  The  peculiar  arrows  which  are  being  shot 
at  wild  oxen  in  the  bas-reliefs  of  Beni  Hassan1  are  still  to  be 
seen  in  collections;  they  are  special  as  to  their  wedge-shaped 
flint  heads,  fixed  with  the  broad  edge  foremost,  a  shape  like  that 
of  the  wooden-headed  bird-bolts  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  stone 
arrow-heads  found  on  the  battle-field  of  Marathon  are  often 
described,  but  arrow-heads  and  other  instruments  of  the  Stone 
Age  are  common  in  Greek  soil,  and  may  be  prae- Aryan.  It  is 
clear,  however,  that  metal  must  be  very  common  and  cheap  to 
be  used  in  so  wasteful  a  way  as  in  heading  an  arrow,  perhaps 
only  for  a  single  shot. 

If  we  go  back  eighteen  hundred  years,  an  account  may  be 
found  of  a  people  living  under  Stone  Age  conditions  in  a  part  of 
Asia  much  less  remote  than  Tartary  and  China  Strabo  gives 
the  following  description  of  the  fish-eaters  inhabiting  the  coast 
of  the  present  Beloochistan,  on  the  Arabian  Sea,  and,  like  the 
Aleutian  Islanders  of  modern  times,  building  their  huts  of  the 
bones  of  whales,  with  their  jaws  for  doorways : — "  The  country 
of  the  Ichthyophagi  is  a  low  coast,  for  the  most  part  without 
trees,  except  palms,  a  sort  of  acanthus,  and  tamarisks  ;  of  water 
and  cultivated  food  there  is  a  dearth.  Both  the  people  and  their 
cattle  eat  fish,  and  drink  rain-  and  well-water,  and  the  flesh  of 
the  cattle  tastes  of  fish.  In  making  their  dwellings,  they  mostly 
use  the  bones  of  whales,  and  oyster- shells,  the  jpibs  serving  for 
beams  and  props,  and  the  jaw-bones  for  doorways  ;  the  vertebra 
they  use  for  mortars,  in  which  they  pound  their  sun-dried  fish, 
and  of  this,  with  the  mixture  of  a  little  corn,  they  make  bread, 
for,  though  they  have  no  iron,  they  have  mills.  And  this  is  the 
less  wonderful,  seeing  that  they  can  get  the  mills  from  elsewhere, 
but  how  can  they  dress  the  millstones  when  worn  down  ?  with 
the  stones,  they  say,  with  which  they  sharpen  their  arrows  and 
darts  [of  wood,  with  points]  hardened  in  the  fire.  Of  the  fish, 
part  they  cook  in  ovens,  but  most  they  eat  raw,  and  they  catch 
them  in  nets  of  palm-bark."2 

1  Wilkinson,  Top.  Ace.,  vol.  i.  pp.  222,  353.  2  Strabo,  xv.  2,  2.     ' 


THE  STONE   AGE  —  PAST  AND  PRESENT.  211 

Though  direct  history  gives  but  partial  means  of  proving  the 
existence  of  a  Stone  Age  over  Asia  and  Europe,  the  finding  of 
ancient  stone  tools  and  weapons  in  almost  every  district  of  these 
two  continents,  proves  that  they  were  in  former  times  inhabited 
by  Stone  Age  races,  though  whether  in  any  particular  spot  the 
tribes  we  first  find  living  there  are  their  descendants  as  well  as 
their  successors,  this  evidence  cannot  tell  us.  How,  for  instance, 
are  we  to  tell  what  race  made  and  used  the  obsidian  flakes  which 
were  found  with  polished  agate  and  carnelian  beads  under  the 
chief  corner-stone  of  the  great  temple  of  Khorsabad  ?  All 
through  Western  Asia,  and  north  of  the  Himalaya,  stone  imple- 
ments are  scattered  broadcast  through  the  land  ;  while  China, 
to  judge  from  the  slender  evidence  forthcoming,  seems  to  have 
had  its  Stone  Age  like  other  regions. 

Japan  abounds  in  Stone  Age  relics,  of  which  Van  Siebold  has 
given  drawings  and  descriptions  in  his  great  work  ;  1  and  his  own 
collection  at  Leyden  is  very  rich  in  specimens.  The  arrow-heads 
of  obsidian,  flint,  chert,  etc.,  are  of  types  like  those  found  else- 
where. Their  presence  is  sometimes  accounted  for  by  stories 
that  they  were  rained  from  the  sky,  or  that  every  year  an  army 
of  spirits  fly  through  the  air  with  rain  and  storm  ;  when  the  sky 
clears,  people  go  out  and  hunt  in  the  sand  for  the  stone  arrows 
they  have  dropped.  The  arrow-heads  are  found  most  abundantly 
in  the  north  of  the  great  island  of  Nippon,  in  the  so-called  land 
of  the  Wild  Men,  a  population  who  were  only  late  and  with 
difficulty  brought  under  the  Mikado  dynasty,  and  who  belong  to 
the  same  Aino  race  as  the  present  inhabitants  of  the  island  of 
Yesso  and  the  southern  Kuriles.  Consul  Brandt  says  that  stone 
arrow-heads  are  still  used  in  North  Japan,  and  that  he  has  even 
seen  in  Yesso  stone  hammers  and  hatchets  among  the  Ainos. 
In  Japan,  stone  celts  are  frequently  to  be  found  in  the  collec- 
tions of  minerals  of  native  amateurs,  and  they  are  dug  up  with 
other  objects  of  stone.  They  seem  only  of  average  symmetry 
and  finish.  Here,  again,  the  natives  call  such  a  stone  celt  a 
"  thunderbolt,"  Eai  fu,  seki,  or  Tengu  no  masakari,  "  battleaxe 


1  Ph.  Fr.  v.  Siebold,   «  Nippon,   Archiv  zur  Beschreibung  von  Japan  ;  '  Leyden, 
1832,  etc.,  part  ii.  plates  xi.   to  xiii.  pp.  45,  etc.     Brandt,  in  Zeitschnft 
nologie,  vol.  iv.  (Verb.)  p.  26,  or  Journ.  Antbrop.  Inst.  vol.  iii.  p.  132. 


212        THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

of  Tengu,"  Tengu  being  the  guardian  of  heaven.  The  notion  is 
also  current  that  they  are  implements  of  the  Evil  Spirit,  whose 
symbol  is  the  fox,  whence  the  names  of  "  Fox-hatchet,"  "  Fox- 
plane."  As  a  fox-plane,  a  double-flat  celt  is  shown  in  Siebold's 
plates,  which  may  have  served  the  purpose  of  a  plane,  or,  if  it 
was  fixed  to  a  handle,  that  of  an  adze.  Regularly  shaped  stone 
knives  (not  mere  flakes)  are  represented  ;  some  are  like  the  stone 
knives  of  Egypt,  but  rougher ;  the  Japanese  recognise  them  as 
"  stone-knives."  Some  which  have  been  dug  up  are  kept  in  the 
temples  as  relics  of  the  time  of  the  Kami,  the  spirits  or  divini- 
ties from  whom  the  Japanese  hold  themselves  to  be  descended, 
and  whose  worship  is  the  old  religion  of  the  Japanese,  the  way 
or  doctrine  of  the  Kami,  more  commonly  known  by  the  Chinese 
term,  Sin-tu.  Some  stone  knives,  drawn  by  Siebold  on  Japanese 
authority,  seem  to  be  of  a  slaty  rock,  which  has  admitted  of 
their  being  very  neatly  made  in  curious  shapes.  One  very  highly 
finished  specimen  is  called  the  stone  knife  of  the  "  Green 
Dragon,"  a  term  which  may  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  the 
conventional  dragon  of  Japan  has  a  sword  at  the  end  of  his  tail. 

Again,  Java  abounds  in  very  high-class  stone  implements,  and 
such  things  are  found  on  the  Malay  Peninsula,  though  in  both 
these  districts  the  natives,  unlike  the  Polynesians,  whose  lan- 
guage is  so  closely  connected  with  theirs,  do  not  even  know 
what  stone  celts  are,  and  hold  with  so  many  other  nations  that 
they  are  thunderbolts.1 

In  India  an  account  of  the  discovery  by  Mr.  H.  P.  Le  Mesurier 
of  a  great  number  of  ancient  stone  celts  was  published  in  1861. 
He  found  them  stored  up  in  villages  of  the  Jubbulpore  district, 
near  the  Mahadeos,  and  in  other  sacred  places  ;  and  since  then 
many  more  have  been  met  with  by  other  observers.2  India  has 
now  to  be  reckoned  among  countries  which  afford  relics  not  only 
of  the  Stone  Age,  but  of  its  ruder  period  of  unpolished  imple- 
ments, preceding  the  more  advanced  period  of  the  ground  celt. 

In  Europe,  ancient  stone  implements  are  found  from  east  to 
west,  and  from  north  to  south,  the  relics  perhaps  of  races  now 

1  Yates,  in  'Archaeological  Journal,'  No.  42.     Earl,  'Papuans,'  pp.  175-6. 
*  Le  Mesurier,   in  Joura.  As.  Soc.   Bengal,   1861,  No.  1,  p.  81.     Theobald,  As. 
Soc.,  Apr.  1864,  etc.,  etc. 


THE  STONE  AGE— PAST  AND  PRESENT.  213 

extinct,  or  absorbed  in  others,  or  of  the  Tatar  population  of 
Finland  and  Lapland,  or  of  that  unclassed  race  which  survives 
in  the  Basque  population  about  the  Pyrenees,  who,  unlike  the 
Finns  and  Lapps,  cannot  as  yet  claim  relationship  with  a  sur- 
viving parent  stock. 

As  to  our  own  Aryan  or  Indo-European  race,  our  first  know- 
ledge of  it,  at  the  remote  period  of  which  a  picture  has  been 
reconstructed  by  the  study  of  the  Vedas,  and  a  comparison  of 
the  Sanskrit  with  other  Aryan  tongues,  shows  a  Bronze  Age 
prevailing  among  them  when  they  set  out  on  their  migrations 
from  Central  Asia  to  found  the  Aryan  nations,  the  Indians, 
Persians,  Greeks,  Germans,  and  the  rest.1  A  general  view  of 
the  succession  of  metal  to  stone  all  over  the  world,  justifies  a 
belief  that  the  Aryans  were  no  exception  to  the  general  rule,  and 
that  they,  too,  used  stone  instruments  before  they  had  metal 
ones ;  but  there  is  little  known  evidence  bearing  on  the  matter 
beyond  that  of  a  few  Aryan  words,  which  are  worth  mentioning, 
though  they  will  not  carry  much  weight  of  argument. 

The  nature  of  this  evidence  may  be  made  clear,  by  noticing 
how  it  comes  into  existence  in  places  where  the  introduction  of 
metal  is  matter  of  history.  In  these  places  it  sometimes  hap- 
pens that  old  words,  referring  to  stone  and  stone  instruments, 
are  transferred  to  metal  and  metal  instruments,  and  these  words 
take  their  place  as  relics  of  the  Stone  Age  preserved  in  language. 
Thus  in  North  America  the  Algonquin  names  for  copper  and 
brass  are  miskwaubik  and  ozaicaubik,  that  is  to  say,  "red-stone" 
and  "yellow-stone;"  while  the  name  e-reck,  that  is,  "stone," 
is  used  by  some  Indian  tribes  of  California  for  all  metals  indis- 
criminately. In  the  Delaware  language,  opeek  is  "  white,"  and 
assuun  is  "  stone  ; "  so  that  it  is  evident  that  the  name  of  silver, 
opussuun,  means  "  white-stone,"  while  the  termination  "  stone  " 
is  discernible  in  msauaasvn,  "  gold."  In  the  Mandan  language, 
the  words  mahi,  "  knife,"  and  mahitshuke,  :'  flint,"  are  clearly 
connected.2  Having  thus  examples  of  the  way  in  which  the 
Stone  Age  has  left  its  mark  in  language,  in  races  among  whom 

1  Weber,  '  Indische  Skizzen  ; '  Berlin,  1857,  p.  9.     Max  Muller,  Lectures,  second 
series,  p.  230,  etc. 

8  Schoolcraft,  part  ii.  pp.  389,  397,  463,  506  ;  part  iii.  pp.  426,  418. 


211        THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

it  has  been  superseded  within  our  knowledge,  it  is  natural  that 
we  should  expect  to  find  words  marking  the  same  change,  in  the 
speech  of  men  who  made  the  same  transition  in  times  not  clearly 
known  to  history.  What  has  been  done  in  this  way  as  yet  comes 
to  very  little,  but  Jacob  Grimm  has  set  an  example  by  citing  two 
words,  hammer,  Old  Norse  hamarr,  meaning  both  "  hammer  "  and 
"  rock,"  and  Latin  saxum,  a  name  possibly  belonging  to  a  time 
when  instruments  to  cut  with,  secare,  were  still  of  stone,  and 
which  still  keeps  close  to  Old  German  sahs,  Anglo-Saxon  seax,  a 
knife.1  There  may  possibly  be  some  connexion  between  sagittn, 
arrow,  and  snxum,  stone,  and  in  like  manner  between  Sanskrit 
qili,  arrow,  qild,  stone,  while  in  the  Semitic  family  of  languages, 
Hebrew  VO,  chetz,  arrow,  V^r?,  cliatzatz,  gravel-stone,  are  both 
related  to  the  verb  V«n,  chatzatz,  to  cut.  But  against  the  infer- 
ence from  these  words,  that  their  connexion  belongs  to  a  time 
when  stone  was  the  usual  material  for  sharp  instruments,  there 
lies  this  strong  objection,  that  knife  and  stone  might  get  from 
the  same  root  names  expressing  sharpness,  or  any  other  quality 
they  have  in  common,  without  having  anything  directly  to  do 
with  one  another,  while  the  same  word,  hamar,  may  have  been 
found  an  equally  suitable  name  for  "  hammer "  and  "  rock," 
without  the  hammer  being  so  called  because  all  hammers  were 
originally  stones.2 

Among  the  Semitic  race,  however,  it  seems  possible  to  bring 
forward  better  evidence  than  this  of  an  early  Stone  Age.  If 
we  follow  one  way  of  translating,  we  find  in  two  passages  of 
the  Old  Testament  an  account  of  the  use  of  sharp  stones  or 
stone  knives  for  circumcision ;  Exodus  iv.  25,  "  And  Zipporah 
took  a  stone"  p2,  tzor),  and  Joshua  v.  2,  "At  that  time  Je- 
hovah said  to  Joshua,  Make  thee  knives  of  stone"  (n'lnnr? 
C'n.S,  charvoth  tzurim).  As  they  stand,  however,  these  pas- 
sages are  not  sufficient  to  prove  the  case,  for  there  is  much 
the  same  ambiguity  as  to  the  original  meaning  of  tzor,  t:ur, 
as  in  the  etymologies  of  some  of  the  words  just  mentioned. 
Gesenius  refers  them  to  "TO  tzur,  to  cut,  and  the  readings 

1  Grimm,  D.  M.,  p.  165  ;  G.  D.  8.,  p.  610. 

1  In  this  connexion  see  the  meanings  of  of  man  in  Boehtlingk  &  Roth,  and  Benfey 
Q.  W.  L.,  part  i.  p.  156. 


THE   STONE  AGE— PAST  AND  PRESENT.  215 

"  an  edge,  a  knife,"  and  "  knives  of  edges,  i.e.  sharp  knives," 
have  so  far  at  least  an  equal  claim.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
which  view  is  supported  by  further  evidence. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Septuagint  altogether  favours  the 
opinion  that  the  knives  in  question  were  of  stone,  by  reading 
in  the  first  place  \lnj<l>ov,  a  stone,  or  pebble,  and  in  the  secend° 
IJ.axa.Lpas  Trerpivas  CK  irfrpas  atpoTofjLov,  stone  knives  of  sharp- 
cut  stone.  These  are  mentioned  again  in  the  remarkable 
passage  which  follows  the  account  of  the  death  and  burial 
of  Joshua  (Joshua  xxiv.  29—30),  "And  it  came  to  pass  after 
these  things,  that  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun,  the  servant  of 
Jehovah,  died,  being  a  hundred  and  ten  years  old,  and  they 
buried  him  in  the  border  of  his  inheritance  in  Timnath  Serah, 
which  is  in  Mount  Ephraim,  on  the  north  side  of  the  hill  of 
Gaash."  Here  follows  in  the  LXX.  a  passage  not  in  the 
Hebrew  text  which  has  come  down  to  us.  "  Kai  exei  Hdrjuav 
per'  avrov  eiy  ro  fj.vrjfj.flov  ev  a>  eda\}/av  avrov  e/cei,  TCLS  naxatpa* 
ras  V€rpiuas,  ev  cus  ve/H&epe  TOVS  viovs  'La-parjX  tv  FaAyaAois, 
ore  e£?/yayey  avrovs  ff  Alytiirrw  KaOa  owe'ra^e  Kvpios'  KCU  (K(t 
fl<rlv  f<as  T?/S-  <rrifj.€pov  fjiUpas."  l  "  And  there  they  laid  with 
him  in  the  tomb  wherein  they  buried  him  there,  the  stone 
knives,  wherewith  he  circumcised  the  children  of  Israel  at  the 
Gilgals,  when  he  led  them  out  of  Egypt,  as  the  Lord  com- 
manded. And  they  are  there  unto  this  day."  Any  one  who 
is  disposed  to  see  in  this  statement  a  late  interpolation,  may 
imagine  an  origin  for  it.  The  opening  of  a  tumulus  con- 
taining, as  they  so  commonly  do,  a  quantity  of  sharp  instru- 
ments of  stone,  might  suggest  to  a  Jew  who  only  knew  such 
things  as  circumcising  knives,  the  idea  that  he  saw  before 
him  the  tomb  of  Joshua,  and,  buried  with  his  body,  the  stone 
knives  wherewith  he  circumcised  the  children  of  Israel. 

How  far  the  modern  Jews  follow  the  translation  "  stone," 
"  knives  of  stone,"  I  cannot  entirely  say,  but  two  modern 
Jewish  translations  of  the  Pentateuch  which  I  have  con- 
sulted read  "stone"  in  Exodus  iv.  25.  It  is  to  be  remark -d 
that  the  Rabbinical  law  admits  such  a  use ;  it  stands  thus  : — 

1  LXX.,  Ed.  Field,  Oxford,  1859.     Elsewhere  Gilead  instead  of  Gaash,  and  other 

differences. 


216        THE  STONE  AGE  —  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 


mnaty\ 

TI  r»2^~  znna  cramps?  %i:"  nap 
•erci  e—  £r~z  rz  r~~=  7"2 


"  We  may  circumcise  with  anything,  even  with  a  flint,  with 
crystal  (glass)  or  with  anything  that  cuts,  except  with  the 
sharp  edge  of  a  reed,  because  enchanters  make  use  of  that,  or 
it  may  bring  on  a  disease,  and  it  is  a  precept  of  the  wise  men 
to  circumcise  with  iron,  whether  in  the  form  of  a  knife  or  of 
scissors,  but  it  is  customary  to  use  a  knife."1  Now  as  Pro- 
fessor Lazarus,  a  most  competent  judge  in  such  matters,  re- 
marked to  me  with  reference  to  this  question,  the  mere  men- 
tion of  a  practice  in  the  Ealbinical  books  is  not  good  evidence 
that  it  ever  really  existed,  seeing  that  their  writers  habitually 
exercise  their  fertile  imaginations  in  devising  cases  which  might 
possibly  occur,  and  then  argue  upon  them  as  seriously  as  though 
they  were  real  matters  of  practical  importance.  But  there  are 
observed  facts,  which  tend  to  bring  these  particular  ordinances 
out  of  the  region  of  fancy,  and  into  that  of  fact.  As  to  the  pro- 
hibition of  the  use  of  the  reed  knife,  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  this 
(in  the  form  of  a  sharp  splinter  of  bamboo)  was  the  regular  in- 
strument with  which  circumcision  was  performed  in  the  Fiji 
islands.3  And  as  to  the  use  of  the  stone  circumcising  knife, 
it  is  stated  by  Leutholf,  who  is  looked  upon  as  a  good  autho- 
rity, that  it  was  in  use  in  .Ethiopia  in  his  time,  —  *'  The 
Alnajah,  an  .Ethiopian  race,  perform  circumcision  with 
stone  knives."  "  Alnajah  gens  jEthiopum  cultris  lapideis 
circumcisionem  peragit."3  This  would  be  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  And  though  the  modern  Jews  generally  use  a  steel 
knife,  there  appears  to  be  a  remarkable  exception  to  this 
custom  ;  that  when  a  male  child  dies  before  the  eighth  day, 
it  is  nevertheless  circumcised  before  burial,  but  this  is  done, 

*  Breeher  ('  Die  Beschneidang  dcr  Isnetttea.'  Vienna,  1845,  p.  70)  aays  a  reed  is 
objectionable  on  account  of  the  splinters. 

-  Mariner,  *oL  L  p.   329;  rol.  iL  p.  252;   Tocab.  *.  m.    "cawo,"   "tefe." 
Williams,  Tip,'  ToL  L  p.  166.     The  Orang  Sabimba  of  the  Malay  Peninsula  cut  the 
umbilical  cord  at  childbirth  with  a  rattan  knife,  though  they  bare  iron  one*,  Journ. 
lod.  Archip.,  rol  L  p.  298. 

»  Ludolfi,  'Histuria  ithiopica;'  Prankfort-on-Maine,  1581,  iiL  1,  21. 


THE  STONE  AGE  —  PAST  AND  PRESENT.  217 

not  with  the  ordinary  instrument,  but  with  a  fragment  of  flint 
or  glass.1 

Under  the  reservation  just  stated,  a  recognition  among  the 
Jewish  ordinances  of  the  practice  of  slaughtering  a  heast  with 
a  [sharp]  stone,  may  here  he  cited  from  the  Mishna  :  — 

2  mo?::  in&Tra;  ^mni  x-rna  *T  baoa  anwn 


"  If  a  person  has  slaughtered  [a  heast]  with  a  hand-sickle,  a 
[sharp]  stone,  or  a  reed,  it  is  en  slier"  i.e.  clean,  or  fit  to  be 
eaten.  Here  not  only  the  context,  but  the  necessity  of  shed- 
ding the  animal's  blood,  proves  that  a  proper  cutting  instru- 
ment of  stone,  or  at  least  a  sharp-edged  piece,  is  meant. 

Before  drawing  any  inference  from  these  pieces  of  evidence, 
it  will  be  well  to  bring  together  other  accounts  of  the  use  of 
cutting  instruments  of  stone,  glass,  etc.,  by  people  who,  though 
in  possession  of  iron  knives,  for  some  reason  or  other  did  not 
choose  to  apply  them  to  certain  purposes.  Thus  the  practice 
of  sacrificing  a  beast,  not  with  a  knife  or  an  axe,  but  with  a 
sharp  stone,  has  been  observed  on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa 
during  the  last  century,  as  will  be  more  fully  detailed  in  page 
223. 

An  often  quoted  instance  of  the  use  of  a  stone  knife  for  a 
ceremonial  purpose,  where  iron  would  have  been  much  more 
convenient,  is  the  passage  in  Herodotus  which  relates  that,  in 
Egypt,  the  mummy-  embalmers  made  the  incision  in  the  side  of 
the  corpse  with  a  sharp  ^Ethiopic  stone.3  The  account  given 
by  Diodorus  Siculus  is  fuller  :—  "  And  first,  the  body  being  laid 
on  the  ground,  he  who  is  called  the  scribe  marks  on  its  left  side 
how  far  the  incision  is  to  be  made.  Then  the  so-called  slittor 
(paraschistes),  having  an  yEthiopic  stone,  and  cutting  the  flesh 
as  far  as  the  law  allows,  instantly  runs  off,  the  bystanders  pur- 
suing him  and  pelting  him  with  stones,  cursing  him,  and  as  it 
were,  turning  the  horror  of  the  deed  upon  him,"  for  he  who 
hurts  a  citizen  is  held  worthy  of  abhorrence.*  There  are  two 

1  My  authority  for  this  statement  is  Mr.  Philip  Abraham,   Secretary  of  the  Re- 
formed Synagogue  in  Margaret  Street,  Cavendish  Square. 
-  Mishna,  Treatise  Cholin,  ch.  i.  2. 
»  Herod.,  ii.  86.  4  Dud-  Sic.,  i.  91. 


218  THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND   PRESENT. 

kinds  of  stone  knives  found  in  excavations  and  tombs  in  Egypt, 
both  of  chipped  flint,  and  very  neatly  made  ;  one  kind  is  like  a 
very  small  cleaver,  the  other  has  more  of  the  character  of  a 
lancet,  and  would  seem  the  more  suitable  of  the  two  for  the 
embalmer's  purpose. 

Noteworthy  from  this  point  of  view,  is  another  description  by 
Herodotus,  that  of  the  covenant  of  blood  among  the  Arabians, 
where  a  man  standing  between  the  parties  with  a  sharp  stone 
made  cuts  in  the  inside  of  their  hands,  and  with  the  blood 
smeared  seven  stones  lying  in  the  midst,  calling  on  their 
deities  Orotal  and  Alilat.1  A  story  related  by  Pliny,  of  the 
way  in  which  the  balsam  of  Judea,  or  "  balm  of  Gilead,"  was 
extracted,  comes  under  the  same  category.  The  incisions,  he 
says,  had  to  be  made  in  the  tree  with  knives  of  glass,  stone,  or 
bone,  for  it  hurts  it  to  wound  its  vital  parts  with  iron,  and  it 
dies  forthwith.8 

With  regard  to  the  reason  of  such  practices  as  these,  it  has 
been  suggested  that  there  was  a  practical  advantage  in  the  use 
of  the  stone  knife  for  circumcision,  as  less  liable  to  cause  in- 
flammation than  a  knife  of  bronze  or  iron.  From  this  point  of 
view  Pliny's  statement  has  been  quoted,  that  the  mutilation  of 
the  priests  of  Cybele  was  done  with  a  sherd  of  Saniian  ware 
(Samia  testa),  as  thus  avoiding  danger.3  But  the  idea  of  a  stone 
instrument  having  any  practical  advantage  over  an  iron  one  in 
cutting  a  living  subject,  and  even  a  dead  body  or  a  tree,  will  not 
meet  with  much  acceptance.  I  cannot  but  think  that  most,  if 
not  all,  of  the  series  are  to  be  explained  as  being,  to  use  the 
word  in  no  harsh  sense,  but  according  to  what  seems  its  proper 
etymology,  cases  of  superstition,  of  the  "  standing  over  "  of  old 
habits  into  the  midst  of  a  new  and  changed  state  of  things,  of 
the  retention 'of  ancient  practices  for  ceremonial  purposes,  long 
after  they  had  been  superseded  for  the  commonplace  uses  of 
ordinary  life.  Such  a  view  takes  in  every  instance  which  has 
been  mentioned,  though  the  reason  of  iron  not  being  adopted  by 

1  Herod.,  iii.  8. 

3  Plin.,  xii.  54.  The  Bogos  of  Abyssinia  are  reported  still  to  make  stone  hatcheta 
for  stripping  bark,  and  to  use  flint  chips  for  bleeding.  '  Materiaux  pour  1'Histoire  de 
I'Homme,'  June,  1872.  [Note  to  3rd  Edition.] 

*  riin.,  xxxv.  46,  xi.  10'J. 


THE   STONE  AGE — PAST   AND   PRESENT.  219 

the  modern  Jews  in  one  case  as  well  as  in  another  is  not  clear.  As 
to  Pliny's  story  of  the  balm  of  Gilead,  I  am  told,  on  competent 
authority,  that  the  use  of  stone  and  such  things  instead  of  iron 
for  making  incisions  in  the  tree,  if  ever  it  really  existed,  could 
be  nothing  hut  a  superstition  without  any  foundation  in  reason. 
It  may  perhaps  tell  in  favour  of  the  story  being  true,  that  it  is 
only  one  of  a  number  of  cases  mentioned  by  Pliny,  of  plants  as 
to  which  the  similar  notion  prevailed,  that  they  would  be  spoiled 
by  being  touched  with  an  iron  instrument.1  There  seems,  on  the 
whole,  to  be  a  fair  case  for  believing  that  among  the  Israelites, 
as  in  Arabia,  Ethiopia  and  Egypt,  a  ceremonial  use  of  stone 
instruments  long  survived  the  general  adoption  of  metal,  and 
that  such  observances  are  to  be  interpreted  as  relics  of  an  earlier 
Stone  Age  ;  while  incidentally  the  same  argument  makes  it 
probable  that  the  rite  of  circumcision  belonged  to  the  Stone  Age 
among  the  ancient  Israelites,  as  we  know  it  does  among  the 
modern  Australians.2 

With  regard  to  the  foregoing  accounts,  there  is  a  point  which 
requires  further  remark.  Glass  has  been  mentioned  by  the  side 
of  stone,  as  a  material  for  making  sharp  instruments  of ;  and  it 
may  seem  at  first  sight  an  unreasonable  thing  to  make  the  use 
of  a  production  which  belongs  to  so  advanced  a  state  of  civiliza- 
tion as  glass,  evidence  of  a  Stone  Age.  But  savages  have  so 
unanimously  settled  it,  that  glass  is  a  kind  of  stone  peculiarly 
suitable  for  such  purposes,  that  where  a  knife  of  glass,  or  a 
weapon  armed  with  it,  is  found,  it  may  be  confidently  set  down 
as  the  immediate  successor  of  a  stone  one.  The  Fuegians  and  the 
Andaman  Islanders  are  found  to  have  used  in  this  manner  the 
bits  of  broken  glass  that  came  in  their  way ;  the  New  Zealanders 
have  been  observed  to  take  a  piece  of  glass  in  place  of  the  sharp 
stone  with  which  they  cut  their  bodies  in  mourning  for  the  dead; 
and  the  North  American  Indians  to  fix  one  in  a  wooden  handle, 
in  place  of  the  sharp  stone  with  which  the  native  phleine  used  to 
be  armed.3  The  Australians  substituted  such  pieces,  when 

1  Plin.,  xix.  57,  xxiii.  81,  xxiv.,  6,  62. 

8  G.  F.  Angas,  '  South  Australia  Illustrated  ; '  London,  1847,  pi.  T. 
*  Fitz  Roy,  '  Voy.  of  H.M.S.  Adventure  and  Beagle;'  London,  1839,  voL  ii.  p.  184. 
Mouat,  p.  305.     Yate,  p.  243.     Loskiel,  p.  144. 


220        THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

they  could  get  them,  for  the  angular  pieces  of  stone  with  which 
their  lances  and  jagged  knives  wrere  mounted.  The  Christy 
Museum  contains  some  interesting  specimens  of  these  Australian 
instruments,  which  date  themselves  in  a  curious  way  as  be- 
longing to  the  time  of  contact  with  Europeans.  They  were 
originally  set  with  stone  teeth;  but  where  these  have  been 
knocked  out,  their  places  have  been  filled  by  new  ones  of  broken 
glass. 

To  complete  the  survey  of  the  Stone  Age  and  its  traces  in  the 
world,  Africa  has  now  to  be  more  fully  examined.  This  great 
continent  is  now  entirely  in  the  Iron  Age.  The  tribes  who  do 
not  smelt  their  own  iron,  as  the  Bushmen,  get  their  supplies 
from  others ;  and  in  the  immense  central  and  western  tracts 
above  the  Equator,  there  appears  to  be  no  record  of  tribes  living 
without  it.  In  South  Africa,  however,  the  case  is  different ;  and 
the  accounts  of  the  English  voyages  round  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope  about  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  collected 
in  Purchas's  '  Pilgrimes,'  give  quite  a  clear  history  of  the 
transition  from  the  Stone  to  the  Iron  Age,  which  was  then 
taking  place. 

Then,  as  now,  the  inhabitants  of  Madagascar  had  their  iron 
knives  and  spear-heads ;  and  they  would  have  silver  in  payment 
for  their  cattle,  Is.  for  a  sheep,  and  3s.  6d.  for  a  cow.  But  on 
the  "West  African  coast,  north  of  the  Cape,  there  we're  pastoral 
tribes,  probably  Hottentots,  who  evidently  did  not  know  then,  as 
they  do  now,  how  to  work  the  abundant  iron  ore  of  their 
country.  At  Saldanha  Bay,  in  1598,  John  Davis  could  get  fat- 
tailed  sheep  and  bullocks  for  bits  of  old  iron  and  nails,  and  in 
1604  a  great  bullock  was  still  to  be  bought  for  a  piece  of  an  old 
iron  hoop.  But  only  seven  years  later,  Nicholas  Dounton, 
"Captaine  of  the  Pepper- Come,"  begins  to  write  ruefully 
of  the  change  in  this  delightful  state  of  things.  "  Saldania 
having  in  former  time  been  comfortable  to  all  our  nation  travel- 
ling this  way,  both  outwards  and  homewards,  yeelding  them 
abundance  of  flesh,  as  sheepe  and  beeves  brought  downe  by  the 
saluage  inhabitants,  and  sold  for  trifles,  as  a  beife  for  a  piece  of 
an  iron  hoope  of  foureteene  inches  long,  and  a  sheepe  for  a  lesser 
piece ;  "  but  now  this  is  at  an  end,  spoilt  perhaps  by  the  Dutch- 


THE   STONE   AGE — PAST  AND   PRESENT.  221 

men,  "  who  use  to  spoyle  all  places  where  they  come  (onely 
respecting  their  owne  present  occasions)  by  their  ouer  much 
liberalise,"  etc.,  etc.1 

Stone  implements  from  South  Africa,  till  lately  very  scarce  in 
ethnological  collections,  are  now  sent  over  in  plenty.  The 
Christy  Museum  contains  arrow-heads,  spear-heads,  scrapers, 
&c.  ;  and  an  adze  mounted  in  its  withe  handle,  which  has  been 
figured,  seems  to  indicate  modern  use.2 

A  native  Dainara  story  indeed  clearly  preserves  a  recollection 
of  the  time,  possibly  several  generations  ago,  when  stone  axes 
were  used  to  cut  down  trees.  The  tale  is  a  sort  of  "  House 
that  Jack  Built,"  in  which  a  little  girl's  mother  gives  her  a 
needle,  and  she  goes  and  finds  her  father  sewing  thongs  with 
thorns,  so  she  gives  him  the  needle  and  he  breaks  it  and  gives 
her  an  axe.  "  Going  farther  on  she  met  the  lads  who  were  in 
charge  of  the  cattle.  They  were  busy  taking  oat  honey,  and  in 
order  to  get  at  it  they  were  obliged  to  cut  down  the  trees  with 
stones."  She  addressed  them  : — "  Our  sons,  how  is  it  that  you 
use  stones  in  order  to  get  at  the  honey?  Why  do  you  not 
say,  Our  first-born,  give  us  the  axe  ?  "  and  so  on.3  Even  now, 
I  have  never  met  with  a  stone  implement  from  West  Africa. 
Yet  the  following  passage  relating  •  to  the  Yoruba  country, 
shows  that  they  are  to  be  found  there  as  elsewhere.  "  The 
stones  or  thunder-bolts  which  Shango  casts  down  from  heaven 
are  preserved  as  sacred  relics.  In  appearance  they  are  identical 
with  the  so-called  stone  hatchets  picked  up  in  the  fields  of 
America."4 

Going  back  two  thousand  years  or  so,  record  is  to  be  found 
at  least  of  a  partial  Stone  Age  condition  in  north  eastern  Africa. 
It  appears  from  Herodotus  that  the  African  Ethiopians  in  the 
army  of  Xerxes  not  only  headed  their  arrows  with  sharp  stone, 
but  had  spears  armed  with  sharpened  horns  of  antelopes,  while 
the  Libyans  had  wooden  javelins  hardened  at  the  point  by  fire.6 

1  Purchas,  vol.  i.  pp.118,  133,  275,  417. 

2  See  Busk,   in   '  Trans.  Pre-hist.  Congress,'  1868,  p.   69.     G.  V.  du  Noyer,  in 
'Archaeological  Journal,'  1847. 

3  Blcek,  '  Reynard  in  Africa,'  p.  90. 

4  Bo  wen,  '  Gr.  and  Die.  of  Yoruba  lang. ; '  p.  xvi.,  in  Smithsonian  Contr.,  vol.  L 

5  Herod.,  vii.  69,  71. 


222  THE  STONE  AGE— PAST  AND   PRESENT. 

Strabo  mentions  in  Ethiopia  a  tribe  who  pointed  their  reed 
arrows  in  this  way,  and  another  who  used  as  weapons  the  horns 
of  antelopes.1  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  in  South  Africa 
the  spear  headed  in  this  way  has  survived  up  to  our  own  time ; 
Mr.  Andersson  saw  the  natives  at  "Walfisch  Bay  spearing  the  fish 
left  at  low  water,  with  a  gemsbock's  horn  attached  to  a  slender 
stick.2 

Traces  of  a  Stone  Age  in  Egypt,  in  the  use  of  the  stone 
arrow-head,  and  of  the  stone  knife  for  ceremonial  purposes, 
have  been  already  spoken  of.  No  account  of  the  finding  of  stone 
implements  in  North  Africa  seems  to  have  been  published  till 
Mr.  Christy,  in  a  journey  made  in  Algeria  in  1863,  found  them 
there.  He  met  with  flint  flake  knives,  arrow-heads,  and 
polished  celts,  at  Constantine ;  flakes,  arrow-heads,  and  a 
beautifully  chipped  lance  head  of  quartzite,  at  Dellys  on  the 
coast;  and  flakes  and  a  large  pick-shaped  instrument,  from  the 
desert  south-east  of  Oran,  on  the  confines  of  Morocco.  At 
Bou-Merzoug,  on  the  plateau  of  the  Atlas,  south  of  Constan- 
tine, he  found,  in  a  bare,  deserted,  stony  place  among  the 
mountains,  a  collection  of  tombs,  1000  or  1500  in  number, 
made  of  the  rude  limestone  slabs,  set  up  with  one  slab  to 
form  a  roof,  so  as  to  make  perfect  dolmens,  closed  chambers 
where  the  bodies  were  packed  in.  Tradition  says  that  a  wicked 
people  lived  there,  and  for  their  sins  stones  were  rained  upon 
them  from  heaven,  so  they  built  these  chambers  to  creep  into. 
Near  this  remarkable  necropolis,  Mr.  Christy  found  flint-flakes 
and  arrow-heads. 

If  we  go  westward  as  far  as  the  Canary  Islands,  we  find  a 
race,  considered  to  be  of  African  origin,  living  in  the  fourteenth 
century  under  purely  Stone  Age  conditions,  making  hatchets, 
knives,  lancets,  and  spear-heads  of  obsidian,  and  axes  of  green 
jasper,  and  pointing  their  spears  and  digging- sticks  with  horns.3 
It  is  possible  that  they  might  have  once  had  the  use  of  iron, 
and  have  lost  it  on  removing  to  the  islands,  where  there  is  no 

1  Strabo,  xvi.  4,  9, 11.  2  Andersson,  p.  15. 

3  Barker- Webb  &  Berthelot,  '  Histoire  Natnrelle  des  lies  Canaries ;'  Paris,  1842, 
etc.,  vol.  i.  part  L  pp.  62,  107,  138.  Bory  d«  St.  Vincent,  'Essai  sur  les  Jlea 
Fortunees ; '  Paris,  An  XI.  (1803-4\  pp.  58,  75-6,  156. 


THE   STONE  AGE — PAST  AND   PRESENT. 

ore,  but  no  evidence  of  this  having  been  the  case  seems  to  have 
been  found. 

In  Western  Africa,  when  the  god  Gimawong  came  down  to 
his  temple  at  Labode  on  the  Gold  Coast  once  a  year,  with  a 
sound  like  a  flight  of  wild  geese  in  spring,  his  worshippers 
sacrificed  an  ox  to  him,  killing  it  not  with  a  knife,  but  with 
a  sharp  stone.1  Klemm  looks  upon  this  as  a  sign  of  the  high 
antiquity  of  the  ceremony,  and,  taking '  into  consideration  the 
evidence  as  to  the  keeping  up  of  the  use  of  stone  for  ceremonial 
purposes  into  the  Iron  Age,  the  inference  seems  a  highly 
probable  one,  although  there  is  another  side  to  this  argu- 
ment. In  order  to  bring  this  into  view,  and  to  adduce 
some  other  facts  bearing  on  evidence  of  the  Stone  Age,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  say  here  something  more  of  the  Myth  of  the 
Thunder-bolt. 

For  ages  it  has  been  commonly  thought  that,  with  the  flash 
of  lightning,  there  falls,  sometimes  at  least,  a  solid  body  which 
is  known  as  the  thunder-bolt,  thunder- stone,  etc.,  as  in  the  dirge 
in  '  Cymbeline,' — 

"  Fear  no  more  the  lightning-flash, 
Nor  the  all-dreaded  thunder-stone." 

The  actual  falling  of  meteoric  stones  may  have  had  to  do  with 
the  growth  of  this  theory,  but  whatever  its  origin,  it  is  one  of 
the  most  widely  spread  beliefs  in  the  world.  The  thing  con- 
sidered to  be  the  thunderbolt  is  not  always  defined  in  accounts 
given.  It  is  described  as  a  stone,2  or  it  may  be  a  bit  of  iron- 
ore,  or  perhaps  iron,3  or  a  belemnite,  /SeAcprln)*,  so  called  from 
P&epvov,  a  dart,  apparently  with  the  idea  of  its  being  a  thunder- 
bolt; for  this  spear-like  fossil  is  still  called  in  England  a  "thun- 
der-stone." Dr.  Falconer  mentions  the  name  of  "lightning- 
bones  "  or  "thunder-bones,"  given  to  fossil  bones  brought  down 
as  charms  from  the  plateau  of  Chanthan  in  the  Himalayas,4 
where,  of  course,  frequent  thunder-storms  are  seen  to  account 

1  Homer,  p.  54.     Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  iii.  p.  378. 

'*  Bosnian,  '  Beschryving  van  de  Guinese  Qoud-Kust,'  etc.  ;  Utrecht,  1704,  p.  109 
(West  Africa).  Latham,  Descr.  Kth.,  vol.  i.  p.  159  (Khyens). 

3  Speke,  Journal  of  Disc.  ;  Edin.  and  London,  186<J,  p.  223. 

4  Proc.  S.  Geog.  Soc.,  Feb.  25,  1S64,  p.  41. 


224        THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

for  their  presence.  But  it  is  also  believed  that  the  stone  celts 
and  hammers  found  buried  in  the  ground  are  thunderbolts.  Tho 
country  folks  of  the  West  of  England  still  hold  that  the  "  thun- 
der-axes" they  find,  fell  from  the  sky,  and  the  Shetlanders  agree 
in  the  opinion.  In  Brittany,  the  itinerant  umbrella-mender  of 
Carnac  inquires  on  his  rounds  for  pierres  de  tonnerre,  and  takes 
them  in  payment  for  repairs ;  and  these  are  fair  examples  of  what 
may  be  found  in  other  -countries  in  Europe,  and  not  in  those 
inhabited  by  our  Aryan  race  alone,  for  the  Finns  have  the  same 
belief.1  The  remarkable  Chinese  account  of  the  thunder- stones 
has  been  already  quoted,  and  it  has  been  noticed  that  stone  celts 
are  held  to  be  thunderbolts  in  Japan  and  the  Eastern  Archi- 
pelago. Even  in  a  country  where  the  use  of  stone  axes  by 
the  Indians  is  matter  of  modern  history,  and  in  some  places 
actually  survives  to  this  day,  the  Brazilians  use,  for  such  a  stone 
axe-blade,  their  Portuguese  word  corisco,"  that  is,  "  lightning," 
"  thunderbolt  "  (Latin  coruscare). 

As  the  stone  axes  and  hammers  are  but  one  of  several  classes 
of  objects  thought  to  be  thunderbolts,  it  is  probable  that  the 
myth  took  them  to  itself  at  a  time  when  their  real  use  and 
nature  had  been  forgotten,  and  the  reason  of  their  being  found 
buried  underground  was  of  course  unknown.  This  view  is  sup- 
ported by  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  such  instruments  being  also 
accounted  for  by  taking  them  up  into  mythology  in  other  ways. 
Thus  in  Japan  the  stone  arrow-heads  are  rained  from  heaven,  or 
dropped  by  the  flying  spirits  who  shoot  them,  while  in  Europe 
they  are  fairy  weapons,  albschosse,  elf-bolts,  shot  by  fairies  or 
magicians,  and  in  the  North  of  Ireland  the  wizards  still  draw 
them  out  from  the  bodies  of  "  overlooked  "  cattle.3  Dr.  Daniel 
Wilson  mentions  an  interesting  post-Christian  myth,  which  pre- 
vailed in  Scotland  till  the  close  of  the  last  century,  that  the  stone 
hammers  found  buried  in  the  ground  were  Purgatory  Hammers 
for  the  dead  to  knock  with  at  the  gates.4 

The  inability  of  the  world  to  understand  the  nature  of  the 

1  Klemm,  0.  W.,  part  ii.  p.  65  ;  and  see  Castrdn,  'Finnische  Mythologie, '  p.  42. 
*  Pr.  Max.  v.  Wied,  'Reise  nach  Erasilien  ;'  Frankfort,  1820-1,  vol.  ii.  p.  35. 
9  Wilde,  Cat.  R.  I.  A.,  p.  19. 
4  Wilson,  'Archaeology,  etc.,  of  Scotland;'  Edinburgh,  1851,  pp.  124,  134,  etc. 


THE   STOXE  AGE— PAST  AXD   PRESENT. 

stone  implements  found  buried  in  the  ground,  is  not  more  con- 
spicuously shown  in  the  myths  of  thunderbolts,  elfin  arrows,  and 
purgatory  hammers,  than  in  the  sham  science  that  has  been 
brought  to  bear  upon  them  in  Europe,  as  well  as  in  China.  It 
is  instructive  to  see  Adrianus  Tollius,  in  his  1649  edition  of 
'  Boethius  on  Gems,'  struggling  against  the  philosophers.  He 
gives  drawings  of  some  ordinary  stone  axes  and  hammers,  and 
tells  how  the  naturalists  say  that  they  are  generated  in  the  sky 
by  a  fulgureous  exhalation  conglobed  in  a  cloud  by  the  circum- 
fixed  humour,  and  are  as  it  were  baked  hard  by  intense  heat, 
and  the  weapon  becomes  pointed  by  the  damp  mixed  with  it 
flying  from  the  dry  part,  and  leaving  the  other  end  denser,  but 
the  exhalations  press  it  so  hard  that  it  breaks  out  through  the 
cloud,  and  makes  thunder  and  lightning.  But,  he  says,  if  this 
be  really  the  way  in  which  they  are  generated,  it  is  odd  that  they 
are  not  round,  and  that  they  have  holes  through  them,  and  those 
holes  not  equal  through,  but  widest  at  the  ends.  It  is  hardly 
to  be  believed,  he  thinks.1  Speculation  on  the  natural  origin 
of  high-class  stone  weapons  and  tools  has  now  long  since  died 
out  in  Europe,  but  some  faint  echoes  of  the  Chinese  emperor's 
philosophy  were  heard  among  us  but  lately,  in  the  arguments  on 
the  natural  formation  of  the  flint  implements  in  the  Drift. 

With  regard,  then,  to  ideas  of  thunderbolts  as  furnishing 
evidence  of  an  early  Stone  Age,  it  may  be  laid  down  that  such  a 
myth,  when  we  can  be  sure  that  it  refers  to  artificial  stone  im- 
plements, proves  that  such  things  were  found  by  a  people  who, 
being  possessed  of  metal,  had  forgotten  the  nature  and  use  of 
these  rude  instruments  of  earlier  times.  Kang-hi's  remarks  that 
some  of  the  so-called  "  lightning- stones  "  were  like  hatchets, 
knives,  and  mallets,  and  Pliny's  mention  of  some  of  the  ceranniie 
or  thunder-stones  being  like  axes,2  are  cases  in  point.  But  the 
mere  mention  of  the  belief  in  thunderbolts  falling,  as  for  example 
in  Madagascar8  and  Arracan,4  only  gives  a  case  for  further  inquiry 
on  the  suspicion  that  the  thunderbolts  in  these  regions  may 

1  Boethius,  '  Gemmarum  &  Lapidum  Historia,'  recensnit,  etc.  Adrianus  Tolhas ; 
Leyden,  1649,  p.  482. 

3  Plin.,  xxxvii.  51.  3  Ellis,  ' Madagascar, '  vol.  L  pp.  30,  398. 

4  Coleman,  Myth,  of  Hindoos,  p.  327. 

Q 


226  THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

turn  out  to  be  stone  implements,  as  they  have  so  often  done 
elsewhere. 

The  thunderbolt  is  thought  to  have  a  magical  power,  and  there 
is  especially  one  notion  in  connexion  with  which  it  conies  into 
use.  This  is  that  it  preserves  the  place  where  it  is  kept  from 
lightning,  the  idea  being  apparently  here,  as  in  the  belief  about 
the  "  wildfire"  which  will  be  presently  mentioned,  that  where 
the  lightning  has  struck,  it  will  not  strike  again,  so  that  the 
place  where  a  thunderbolt  is  put  is  made  safe  by  having  been 
already  struck  once,  though  harmlessly.  In  Shetland  the  thunder- 
bolts (which  are  stone  axes)  protect  from  thunder,  while  in 
Cornwah1  the  stone  hatchets  and  arrow-heads,  which  fall  from 
the  clouds  where  the  thunder  produced  them,  announce  by  change 
of  colour  a  change  of  weather.1  In  Germany,  the  house  in  which 
a  thunderbolt  is  kept  is  safe  from  the  storm  ;  when  a  tempest  is 
approaching,  it  begins  to  sweat,  and  again  it  is  said  of  it,  that 
"  he  who  chastely  beareth  this,  shall  not  be  struck  by  lightning, 
nor  the  house  or  town  where  that  stone  is,"-  while  nearly  the 
same  idea  comes  out  in  Pliny's  account  of  the  brontia,  which  is 
"  like  the  heads  of  tortoises,  and  falling,  as  they  think,  with 
thunder,  puts  out,  if  you  will  believe  it,  what  has  been  struck  by 
lightning."3 

In  the  mythology  of  our  race,  the  bolt  of  the  Thunder-god 
holds  a  prominent  place.  To  him,  be  he  Indra  or  Zeus  the 
Heaven-god,  or  the  very  thunder  itself  in  person,  Thunor  or 
Thor,  the  Aryans  give  as  an  attribute  the  bolt  which  he  hurls 
with  lightning  from  the  clouds.  Now  it  is  possible  that  this  was 
the  meaning  of  the  Roman  Jupiter  Lapis.  The  sacred  flint  was 
kept  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Feretrius,  and  brought  out  to  be  sworn 
by,  and  with  it  the  pater  patratus  smote  the  victim  slain  to  con- 
secrate the  solemn  treaties  of  the  Roman  people.  "  'If  by  public 
counsel,'  he  said,  '  or  by  wicked  fraud,  they  swerve  first,  in  that 
day,  0  Jove,  smite  thou  the  Roman  people,  as  I  here  to-day  shall 
smite  this  hog ;  and  smite  them  so  much  more,  as  thou  art  abler 

1  J.  Hunt,  in  Mem.  Anthropol.  Soc.,  vol.  ii.  p.  317.  E.  Hunt,  'Popular  Romances 
of  W.  of  England,'  2nd  series,  p.  233. 

*  Grimm,  D.  M..  pp.  164,  11-70. 

*  Plin.,  \xxvii.  55. 


THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT.  2:27 

and  stronger.' .  And  having  said  this,  he  struck  the  hog  with  a 
flint  stone."1 

To  those  who  read  this,  it  will  seem  prohable  that  the  flint  of 
Jupiter  was  held  either  to  be  a  thunderbolt  or  to  represent  one, 
and  the  practice  cannot  be  taken  as  having  of  necessity  come 
down  from  an  early  Stone  Age,  seeing  that  it  might  quite  as  well 
have  sprung  up  among  a  race  possessed  of  metals.  The  sacred 
instrument  is  commonly  spoken  of  indefinitely,  as  lapis  aili:r, 
sat- it  HI  sil'X,  but  it  may  have  been  a  flint  implement  found 
buried  in  the  ground,  for  already  in  the  ancient  song  of  the 
"  Arval  Brethren,"  the  thunderbolt  is  spoken  of  as  a  celt  (ca- 
neiis)  "  quom  tibei  cunei  decstumum  tonarunt,"2  and,  as  has 
been  shown,  at  least  this  development  of  the  myth  of  the  thun- 
derbolt belongs  to  an  age  when  the  nature  of  the  buried  stone 
implement  has  been  forgotten.  Yet  if  all  we  knew  about  tho 
matter  was  that  victims  were  sacrificed  with  a  flint  on  certain 
occasions,  and  that  the  Fetiales  carried  these  flints  with  them 
into  foreign  countries  where  a  treaty  was  to  be  solemnized,  it 
might  be  quite  plausibly  argued  that  we  had  here  before  us  a 
practice  which  had  come  down,  unchanged,  from  the  time  wheu 
the  fathers  of  the  Eoman  race  used  stone  implements  for  the 
ordinary  purposes  of  life.  This  is  the  other  side  of  the  argu- 
ment, which  must  not  be  kept  out  of  sight  in  interpreting,  as  a 
relic  of  the  Stone  Age,  the  West  African  ceremony  of  slaughter- 
ing the  beast  on  the  yearly  sacrifice  to  Gimawong,  not  with  a 
knife,  but  with  a  sharp  stone.3 

The  examination  of  the  evidence  bearing  on  the  Stone  Age 
thus  brings  into  view  two  leading  facts.  In  the  first  place, 
within  the  limits  of  the  Stone  Age  itself,  an  unmistakable 
upward  development  in  the  course  of  ages  is  to  be  discerned, 
in  the  traces  of  an  early  period  when  stone  implements  were 
only  used  in  their  rude  chipped  state,  and  were  never  ground  or 
polished,  followed  by  a  later  period  when  grinding  came  to  be 
applied  to  improve  such  stone  instruments  as  required  it.  And 

'  Liv.,  i.  24  ;  xxx.  43.     Cornelius  Nepos  ;  Hannibal.     Grimm,  D.  M.,  p.  1171. 

•  Kuhn,  '  Herabkunft  des  Feuers,'  p.  %2-'J. 

3  A  passage  in  Klemm,  C.  (*.,  vol.  iv.  p.  91,  relating  to  a  Circassian  pnu 
sacrificing  with  a  "  thurvlerlwlt,"  arises  from  a  misunderstanding.     See  J.  b.  B«U, 
•Ckcassia,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  9o,  108.  2 


228        THE  STONE  AGE — PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

in  the  second  place,  a  body  of  evidence  from  every  great  district 
of  the  habitable  globe  uniformly  tends  to  prove,  that  where  man 
is  found  using  metal  for  his  tools  and  weapons,  either  his 
ancestors  or  the  former  occupants  of  the  soil,  if  there  were  any, 
once  made  shift  with  stone.  It  would  be  well  to  have  the  evi- 
dence fuller  from  some  parts  of  the  world,  as  from  Southern 
Asia  and  Central  Africa,  but  we  need  not  expect  from  thence 
anything  but  confirmation  of  what  is  already  known. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

FIKE,    COOKING,    AND    VESSELS. 

THERE  are  a  number  of  stories,  old  and  new,  of  tribes  of  man- 
kind living  in  ignorance  of  the  art  of  fire-making.  Such  a 
state  of  things  is  indeed  usuaUy  presupposed  by  the  wide- 
spread legends  of  first  fire-makers  or  fire-bringers,  and  Plu- 
tarch, in  his  essay  on  the  question  "  Whether  water  or  fire  is 
the  more  useful?"  gives  a  typical  view  of  the  matter.  Fire 
was  invented,  as  they  say,  by  Prometheus,  and  our  life  shows 
that  this  was  not  a  poetic  fiction.  For  there  are  some  races  of 
men  who  live  without  fire,  houseless,  hearthless,  and  dwelling 
in  the  open  air.1  The  modern  point  of  view  is,  however,  very 
different  from  Plutarch's,  and  when  the  mention  of  a  fireless 
race  appears  in  company  with  a  Prometheus,  mythology,  not 
history,  claims  it.  The  mere  assertion  that  in  a  certain  place  a 
race  is,  or  was,  to  be  found  living  without  fire  is  more  difficult 
to  deal  with.  In  examining  a  collection  of  such  statements,  it 
is  well  to  pay  particular  attention  to  the  modern  ones,  on  which 
collateral  evidence  may  be  brought  to  bear. 

What  is  known  of  the  native  civilization  of  the  Canary 
Islands,  the  making  of  pottery,  the  cooking  in  underground 
ovens,  the  use  of  the  fire-drill,  leaves  no  doubt  that  the  Guanches 
knew  how  to  produce  and  use  fire  at  the  time  of  the  European 
expeditions  in  the  14th  and  15th  centuries.  Yet  Antonio  Gal- 
vano,  writing  his  treatise  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  declares  that  "  in  times  past  they  ate  raw  meat,  for 
want  of  fire."  Farther  on  in  the  same  book  he  has  another 
story  of  a  fireless  people.  In  1529,  Alvaro  de  Saavedra,  return- 
ing from  the  Moluccas  toward  the  Pacific  coast  of  Mexico, 

1  Plut.,  'Aqua  an  Ignis  utilior  ?' 


230  FIRE,   COOKING,   AND  VESSELS. 

sailed  eastward  along  the  north  coast  of  New  Guinea,  and 
having  gone  four  or  five  degrees  south  of  the  Line,  crossed 
again  to  the  north,  and  discovered  an  island  of  tattooed  people, 
which  he  called  Isla  de  los  Pintados,  or  the  isle  of  painted  men. 
Beyond  this  island,  in  10°  or  12°  N.,  they  found  many  small 
smooth  ones  together,  full  of  palms  and  grass,  and  these  they 
called  Los  Jardines,  "  The  Gardens."  The  natives  had  no 
domestic  animals,  they  were  dressed  in  a  white  cloth  of  grass, 
ate  coco-nuts  for  hread,  and  raw  fish,  which  they  took  in -the 
praus  which  they  made  out  of  drift  pine-wood  with  their  tools 
of  shell.  They  stood  in  terror  of  fire,  for  they  had  never  seen  it 
(espantaram  se  do  fogo,  porque  nunca  o  virarn).1  I  am  not 
aware  that  these  islands  have  heen  identified,  but  they  would 
seem  to  be  somewhere  about  the  Eadack  or  Chatham  group. 
The  account  of  the  natives,  to  judge  by  its  general  consistency 
with  what  is  known  of  the  common  eating  of  raw  vegetables 
and  fish  in  other  coral  islands  in  the  Pacific,  seems  to  have 
come  mostly  or  altogether  from  an  eye-witness,  and  the  state- 
ment that  they  had  no  fire  is  not  to  be  summarily  set  down  as 
a  mere  fiction,  like  that  about  the  Canary  Islands.  It  has  for- 
tunately happened,  however,  that  a  very  similar  story  has  come 
up  in  our  own  time  about  another  coral  island,  under  circum- 
stances which  allow  of  its  accuracy  being  tested.  When  the 
United  States'  Exploring  Expedition,  under  Commodore  Wilkes, 
visited  Fakaafo  or  Bowditch  Island  in  1841,  they  made  the 
following  remarks  : — "  There  was  no  sign  of  places  for  cooking, 
nor  any  appearance  of  fire,  and  it  is  believed  that  all  their 
provisions  are  eaten  raw.  What  strengthened  this  opinion,  was 
the  alarm  the  natives  felt  when  they  saw  the  sparks  emanating 
from  the  flint  and  steel,  and  the  emission  of  smoke  from  the 
mouths  of  those  who  were  smoking  cigars."2 

Curiously  enough,  within  the  very  work  which  contains  these 
remarks,  particulars  are  given  which  show  that  fire  was  in 
reality  a  familiar  thing  in  the  island.  Mr.  Hale,  the  ethno- 
grapher to  the  expedition,  not  only  mentions  the  appearance  of 

1  Galvano,  'Discoveries  of  the  World;'  Hakluyt  Soc.,  London,  1862,  pp.  66, 
174-9,  238. 

-  Wilkes,  'Narr.  of  TJ.  S.  Exploring  Exp.,  1838-42  ;'  London.  1845,  vol.  v.  i .  IS. 


FIRE,   COOKING    AND  VESSELS.  231 

smoke  on  the  neighbouring  Duke  of  York's  Island  as  bein<» 
evidence  of  natives  being  there,  but  he  gives  the  name  for  fire 
in  the  language  of  Fakaafo,  fifi,1  a  most  widely-spread  Malavo- 
Polynesian  word,  corresponding  to  the  Malay  form  api.  Some 
years  later,  the  Rev.  George  Turner  again  mentions  this  word 
aft,  and  gives  besides  a  native  story  about  fire,  which  is  an  in- 
teresting example  of  the  way  in  which  a  mere  myth  may  never- 
theless be  a  piece  of  historical  evidence.  The  account  which 
the  inhabitants  of  Fakaafo  give  of  the  introduction  of  fire  among 
themselves  is  thus  related.  "  The  origin  of  fire  they  trace  to 
Mafuike,  but,  unlike  the  Mafuike  of  the  mythology  of  some 
other  islands,  this  was  an  old  blind  lady.  Talangi  went  down 
to  her  in  her  lower  regions,  and  asked  her  to  give  him  some  of 
her  fire.  She  obstinately  refused  until  he  threatened  to  kill 
her,  and  then  she  yielded.  With  the  fire  he  made  her  say  what 
fish  were  to  be  cooked  with  it,  and  what  were  still  to  be  eaten 
raw,  and  then  began  the  time  of  cooking  food."  Utter  myth  as 
this  story  is,  it  yet  joins  with  the  evidence  of  language  in 
bringing  the  history  of  the  islanders  who  tell  it  into  connexion 
with  the  history  of  the  distant  New  Zealanders.  It  belongs  to 
the  great  Polynesian  myth  of  Maui,  who,  the  New  Zealand 
story  says,  went  away  to  the  dwelling  of  his  great  ancestress 
Malmika,  and  got  fire  from  her.2  And  it  proves  that,  even  in 
the  past  time  when  these  two  versions  of  the  story  branched  off, 
one  to  be  found  in  Fakaafo,  and  the  other  in  New  Zealand,  not 
only  was  fire  known,  but  its  discovery  had  become  already  a 
thing  of  the  forgotten  past,  or  a  myth  would  not  have  been 
applied  to  explain  it. 

In  his  account  of  the  natives  of  Fakaafo,  Mr.  Turner  speaks 
of  their  recollection  of  the  time  when  they  used  fire  in  felling 
trees,  and  he  mentions,  moreover,  some  curious  native  ordi- 
nances respecting  fire.  "No  fire  is  allowed  to  be  kindled  at 
night  in  the  houses  of  the  people  all  the  year  round.  It  is 
sacred  to  the  god,  and  so,  after  sundown,  they  sit  and  chat  in 
the  dark.  There  are  only  two  exceptions  to  the  rule :  first,  fire 

1  Hale,  'Ethnography,  etc.,  of  U.  S.  Exp. ;'  Philadelphia  ed.  vol.  vi.  1846, pp.  149, 
363. 

2  Sir  G.  Grey,  '  Polynesian  Mythology  ; '  London,  1855,  pp.  45-9. 


232  FIRE,   COOKING,   AND  VESSELS. 

to  cook  fish  caught  in  the  night,  hut  then  it  must  not  be  taken 
to  their  houses,  only  to  the  cooking-house  ;  and  second,  a  light 
is  allowed  at  night  in  a  house  where  there  happens  to  he  a  con- 
finement."1 It  is  likely  that  Wilkes  may  have  misinterpreted 
the  surprise  of  the  natives  at  seeing  cigars  smoked,  and  fire 
produced  from  the  flint  and  steel,  as  well  as  the  eating  of  raw 
fish  and  the  absence  of  signs  of  cooking  in  the  dwellings.  If 
the  similar  story  of  the  islanders  of  Los  Jardines  really  came 
from  an  eye-witness,  it  may  have  arisen  in  much  the  same  way. 
In  Kotzebue's  time,  the  people  of  the  Kadack  group  (which 
may  be  perhaps  the  very  Jardines  in  question)  were  just  as 
much  astonished  at  the  smith's  forge,  though  fire  was  a  well- 
known  thing  to  them.2 

The  circumstances  of  Magalhaens'  discovery  of  the  Ladrones 
or  Marian  Islands,  and  the  Philippines,  in  1521,  are  known  to 
us  from  the  narrative  of  his  companion  Antonio  Pigafetta,3  who 
describes  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  natives,  but  without 
a  hint  that  fire  was  anything  strange  to  them.  This  preposte- 
rous addition  must  be  sought  in  later  authors.  In  1652,  Horn, 
not  content  with  quoting  Galvano's  stories  of  the  Canaries  and 
Los  Jardines,  adds  the  natives  of  the  Philippines  as  a  race 
destitute  of  fire.4  But  the  story  of  the  Ladrone  Islanders  is 
even  more  remarkable  than  this. 

The  arts  of  these  people  are  described  by  Pigafetta  with 
some  detail.  He  mentions  the  slight  clothing  of  bark  worn  by 
the  women,  the  mats  and  baskets,  the  wooden  houses,  the 
canoes  with  outriggers,  and  he  notices  that  the  natives  had  no 
weapons  but  lances  pointed  with  fish  bones,  and  had  no  notion 
of  what  arrows  were.  They  stole  everything  they  could  lay 
hands  on,  and  at  last  Magalhaens  went  on  shore  with  forty  men, 
burnt  forty  or  fifty  of  their  houses,  and  killed  seven  of  the  people. 
A  hundred  and  eighty  years  afterwards  the  Jesuit  Father  Le 
Gobien  brought  out  a  new  feature  in  the  story.  "  What  is  most 

1  Turner,  '  Polynesia,'  pp.  527-8,  and  Vocab. 

2  Otto  v.  Kotzebue,  '  Entdeckungs-Reise  ; '  Weimar,  1821,  vol.  ii.  p.  67. 

3  Pigafetta,  '  Viaggio  fatto  attorno  il  Mondo,'  1556.     Eng.   Trans,  in  Pinkerton, 
Tol.  xi. 

4  Homius,    'De  Originibus  Americanis;'   The  Hague,  1652,  pp.   204,  51.     See 
Goguet,  vol.  i.  p.  69. 


FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS.  233 

astonishing,  and  what  people  will  find  it  hard  to  believe,  is  that 
they  had  never  seen  fire.  This  so  necessary  element  was  en- 
tirely unknown  to  them.  They  neither  knew  its  use  nor  its 
qualities ;  and  they  were  never  more  surprised  than  when  they 
saw  it  for  the  first  time  on  the  descent  that  Magellan  made  on 
one  of  their  islands,  where  he  burnt  some  fifty  of  their  houses, 
to  punish  these  islanders  for  the  trouble  they  had  given  him. 
They  at  first  regarded  the  fire  as  a  kind  of  animal  which  at- 
tached itself  to  the  wood  on  which  it  fed.  The  first  who  came 
too  near  it  having  burnt  themselves  frightened  the  rest,  and 
only  dared  look  at  it  from  afar ;  for  fear,  they  said,  of  being 
bitten  by  it,  and  lest  this  terrible  animal  should  wound  them 
by  its  violent  breath,"  etc.  etc.  He  goes  on  to  tell  how  they 
soon  got  accustomed  to  it  and  learnt  to  use  it.1 

It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  the  change  in  historical  criticism 
that  has  come  since  1700,  that  the  Jesuit  historian  should  have 
expected  so  singular  a  story,  not  mentioned  by  the  eye-witness 
who  described  the  discov.ery,  to  be  received  without  the  pro- 
duction of  the  slightest  evidence,  a  hundred  and  eighty  years 
after  date,  and  that  the  public  should  have  justified  his  confi- 
dence in  their  credulity  by  believing  and  quoting  his  account. 
Whether  he  took  it  directly  from  any  other  book  or  not  I  can- 
not tell ;  but  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  if  we  add  Galvano's 
story  about  Los  Jardines  to  Pigafetta's  mention  of  Magalhaens 
burning  the  houses  of  the  Ladrone  Islanders,  we  may  account 
for  the  sources  of  all  Father  Le  Gobien's  story,  except  the  idea 
of  the  fire  being  an  animal,  which  may  be  supplied  out  of 
Herodotus.  "  By  the  Egyptians  also  it  hath  been  held  that 
fire  is  a  living  beast,  and  that  it  devours  everything  it  can  seize, 
and  when  filled  with  food  it  perishes  with  what  it  has  de- 
voured."2 

There  are  stories  of  fireless  men  in  America,  to  which  I  can 
only  refer.  Father  Lafitau  speaks  indefinitely  of  there  being 
such.3  Father  Lombard,  of  the  Company  of  Jesus,  writing  in 
1730  from  Kourou,  in  French  Guyana,  gives  an  account  of  the 

1  Le  Gobien,  '  Histoire  des  Isles  Marianes  ; '  Paris,  1700,  p.  44. 

2  Herod.,  iii.  16. 

3  Lafitau,  '  Mceurs  des  Sauvages  Amdriquains  ; '  Paris,  1724,  vol.  L  p.  40. 


234  FIRE,   COOKING,   AND  VESSELS. 

tribe  of  Amikouanes  on  the  river  Oyapok,  who  are  also  called 
"  long-eared  Indians,"  their  ears  being  stretched  to  then- 
shoulders.  This  nation,  he  says,  which  hus  been  hitherto 
unknown,  is  extremely  savage  ;  they  have  no  knowledge  of  fire.1 

It  is  a  very  curious  thing  that  one  of  the  oldest  stories  of  a 
race  of  fireless  men  is  also  the  newest.  In  Ethiopia,  says  the 
geographer  Pomponius  Mela,  "  there  are  people  to  whom  fire 
was  so  totally  unknown  before  the  coining  of  Eudoxus,  and  so 
wondrously  were  they  pleased  with  it  when  they  saw  it,  that 
they  had  the  greatest  delight  in  embracing  the  flames  and  hiding 
burning  things  in  their  bosom  till  they  were  hurt."2  Pliny 
places  these  fireless  men  in  his  catalogue  of  monstrous  Ethio- 
pian tribes,  between  the  dumb  men  and  the  pygmies.  To  some, 
he  says,  the  use  of  fire  was  unknown  before  the  time  of  Ptolemy 
Lathyrus,  king  of  Egypt.3  His  mention  of  the  name  of  Ptolemy 
Lathyrus  shows  that  he,  too,  is  quoting  the  voyages  of  Eudoxus 
of  Cyzicus.  Whether  there  was  such  a  person  as  Eudoxus,  and 
whether  he  really  made  the  voyages  attributed  to  him  or  not,  is 
not  very  clear ;  but  his  story,  like  that  of  Sindbad,  embodies  notions 
current  at  the  time  it  was  written.  And  with  such  tenacity  does 
the  popular  mind  hold  on  to  old  stories,  that  now,  after  a  lapse 
of  some  two  thousand  years,  the  fireless  men  and  the  pygmies 
are  brought  by  the  modern  Ethiopians  into  even  closer  contact 
than  in  the  pages  of  Pliny.  Dr.  Krapf  was  told  that  the  Dokos, 
men  four  feet  high,  living  south  of  Kaifa  and  Susa,  subsisted  on 
roots  and  serpents,  and  were  not  acquainted  with  fire.4  As  far 
as  the  pj'gmies  are  concerned,  there  appears  to  be  a  foundation  for 
the  story,  in  a  race  of  small  men  really  living  there.  Krapf  was 
shown  a  slave  four  feet  high,  who,  they  told  him,  was  a  Doko. 
But  between  four  feet  and  three  spans,  the  height  assigned  by 
Pliny  to  pygmy  races  elsewhere,5  there  is  a  difference.  Nor  is 
this  the  only  instance  of  the  wonderful  permanence  of  old  stories 
in  this  part  of  the  world,  quite  irrespectively  of  their  being  true. 
Within  no  great  distance,  an  old  negro  gave  Mr.  Petherick  an 

1  'Lettres  Edifiantes  et  Curieuses  ;'  Paris,  1731,  vol.  xx.  p.  223.     Goguet,  1.  c. 

2  Mela,  iii.  c.  9.  3  Plin.,  vi.  C5,  and  see  ii.  67. 

4  Krapf,   Travels,   etc.,  in  East  Africa;    London,   1360,  p.  51,  etc.     See  Peity, 
'Grundziige  der  Ethnograpbie  ; '  Leipzig,  1859,  p.  248.  6  Plin.,  vii.  2. 


FIRE,   COOKING,   AND  VESSELS.  235 

account  of  the  monstrous  men  he  had  met  with  on  his  travels, 
the  men  with  four  eyes,  the  men  with  eyes  under  their  arm-pits, 
the  men  with  long  tails,  and  the  men  vihose  ears  were  so  big 
that  they  covered  their  bodies;1  so  nearly  has  the  modern 
African  kept  to  the  wonder-ta'es  that  were  current  in  the  time 
of  Pliny.2 

An  unquestionable  account  of  a  fireless  tribe  would  be  of  the 
highest  interest  to  the  ethnographer,  proving,  as  it  would  do, 
a  great  step  forward  made  by  the  races  who  can  produce  fire, 
for  this  is  an  art  which,  once  learnt,  could  hardly  be  lost.  But 
when  we  see  that  stories  of  such  tribes  have  been  set  up  again 
and  again  without  any  sound  basis,  while  further  information, 
when  brought  to  bear  on  a  series  of  such  stories,  tells  against 
them  so  far  as  it  goes,  wTe  are  hardly  warranted  in  trusting 
others  of  the  same  kind  just  because  we  have  no  means  of 
testing  them.  A  cause  is  required  for  the  appearance  of  such 
stories  in  the  world,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  this  cause  must 
be  the  real  existence  of  fireless  tribes ;  a  mere  belief  in  their 
existence  will  answer  the  purpose,  and  this  belief  is  known  to 
have  been  current  for  ages,  especially  coming  out  in  the  Pro- 
metheus-legends of  various  regions  of  the  world.  Experience 
shows  how  such  an  idea,  when  once  fairly  afloat,  will  assert 
itself  from  time  to  time  in  stories  furnished  with  place,  date, 
and  circumstance.  It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  the  fireless 
men  form  only  one  of  a  number  of  races  mentioned  by  writers, 
old  and  new,  as  being  distinguished  by  the  want  of  something 
which  man  usually  possesses,  who  have  no  language,  no  names, 
no  idea  of  spiritual  beings,  no  dreams,  no  mouths,  no  heads,  or 
no  noses,  but  wiiose  real  existence  more  accurate  knowledge  has 
by  no  means  tended  to  confirm. 

In  connexion  with  the  stories  of  fireless  tribes,  some  accounts 
of  a  kind  of  transitional  state  may  be  mentioned  here.  Mr. 
Backhouse  was  told  by  a  native  of  Van  Diemen's  Land,  that 
his  ancestors  had  no  means  of  making  fire  before  their  ac- 
quaintance with  Europeans.  They  got  it  first  from  the  sky, 
and  preserved  it  by  carrying  firebrands  about  with  them,  and 
if  these  went  out,  they  looked  for  the  smoke  of  the  fire  of  some 

1  Pethcrick  p.  267.  2  Plin.,  vi.  35,  vii.  2. 


236  FIRE,   COOKING,  AXD  VESSELS. 

other  party,  or  for  smouldering  remains  of  a  lately-abandoned 
fire  of  their  own.1  This  curious  account  fits  with  the  Tas- 
manian  myth  recorded  by  Mr.  Milligan,  which  tells  how  fire 
was  thrown  down  like  a  star  by  two  black-fellows,  who  are 
now  in  the  sky,  the  twin  stars  Castor  and  Pollux.2  Moreover, 
Mr.  Milligan  himself,  on  the  question  being  put  to  him,  has 
answered  it  in  a  way  very  much  corresponding  to  Mr.  Back- 
house's account,  to  the  effect  that  the  Tasmanians  never  pro- 
duced fire  by  artificial  means  at  all,  but  always  carried  it  with 
them  from  one  camping  place  to  another.  Again,  a  statement 
of  the  same  kind  is  reported  to  have  been  made  by  Mr.  Mac 
Douall  Stuart  at  the  1864  Meeting  of  the  British  Association, 
that  fire  was  obtained  by  the  natives  of  the  southern  part  of 
Australia  by  the  friction  of  two  pieces  of  wood  over  a  bunch 
of  dry  grass ;  but  that  in  the  north  this  mode  is  unknown,  fire- 
brands being  constantly  carried  about  and  renewed,  and  if,  by 
any  accident,  they  become  extinguished,  a  journey  of  great 
length  has  to  be  undertaken  in  order  to  obtain  fire  from  other 
natives.3  So  Mr.  Angas  declares  that  some  tribes  of  W»-st 
Australia  have  no  means  of  kindling  fire,  but  if  it  goes  out  they 
get  it  from  some  encampment  near;  they  say  that  their  fire 
formerly  came  down  from  the  north.4  With  these  statements 
two  things  must  be  borne  in  mind.  The  simple  apparatus  for 
making  fire  by  friction  was  in  common  use  among  Australian 
tribes,  and  in  Tasmania.  And  it  has  been  several  times  re- 
marked that  Australians,  although  acquainted  with  the  art  of 
making  new  fire  with  this  instrument,  yet  finding  the  process 
troublesome,  especially  in  wet  weather,  carry  burning  brands 
about  with  them  everywhere,  so  as  to  be  able  to  light  a  fire  at  a 
moment's  notice.6 

1  Backhouse,  'Australia,'  p.  99. 

2  See  Chapter  XII.     Mr.  Calder  in  Jonrn.  Anthrop.  Inst.  vol.  iii.  p.  19,  accounts 
for  the  Tasmanians'  non-use  of  the  friction -apparatus  by  stating  that  the  trees  of  the 
country  are  mostly  too  hard  and  uninflammable  for  the  purpose.       [Xote   to  3rd 
Edition.]  3  'Athenaeum,'  Oct.  15,  1864,  p.  503. 

4  Angas,  'Savage  Life  ; '  vol.  i.  p.  112. 

*  Oldfield  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.,  vol.  iii.  p.  233.  Dumont  d'Urville,  'Voyage  de 
I* Astrolabe  ;'  vol.  i.  p.  95.  See  Sir  John  Lubbock's  remarks  on  accounts  of  tribes 
without  fire,  or  without  the  art  of  fire-making,  in  '  Prehistoric  Times,'  pp.  4 'J3.  439, 
547. 


FIRE,   COOKING,   AND  VESSELS. 


237 


The  accounts,  then,  of  the  finding  of  fireless  tribes  are  of 
a  highly  doubtful  character ;  possibly  true  to  some  extent,  but 
not  probably  so.  Of  the  existence  of  others  who  are  possessed 
of  fire,  but  cannot  produce  it  for  themselves,  there  is  more 
considerable  evidence.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  both  the  pos- 
session of  fire,  and  the  art  of  making  it,  belong  certainly  to 
the  vast  majority  of  mankind,  and  have  done  so  as  far  back  as 
we  can  trace.  The  methods,  however,  which  have  been  found 
in  use  for  making  fire  are  very  various.  A  survey  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  art  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  as  known  to  us 
by  direct  evidence,  is  enough  to  make  it  probable  that  nearly 
all  the  different  processes  found  in  use  are  the  successors  of 
ruder  ones ;  and,  besides  this,  there  is  a  mass  of  indirect  evi- 
dence which  fills  up  some  of  the  shortcomings  of  history,  as  it 
does  in  the  investigation  of  the  Stone  Age.  Among  some  of 
the  highest  races  of  mankind,  the  lower  methods  of  fire-making 
are  still  to  be  seen  cropping  out  through  the  higher  processes 
by  which,  for  so  many  ages,  they  have  been  overlaid.  The 
friction  of  two  pieces  of  wood  may  perhaps  be  the  original 
means  of  fire-making  used  by  man ;  but,  between  the  rudest 
and  the  most  artificial  way  in  which  this  may  be  done,  there  is 
a  considerable  range  of  progress. 

One  of  the  simplest  machines  for  producing  fire  is  that  which 
may  be  called  the  "  stick-and- 
groove."  A  blunt-pointed  stick 
is  run  along  a  groove  of  its 
own  making  in  a  piece  of 
wood  lying  on  the  ground, 
somewhat  as  shown  in  the 
imaginary  drawing,  Fig.  20. 
Mr.  Darwin  says  that  the  very 
light  wood  of  the  Hibiscus 
tiUcceus  was  alone  used  for 
the  purpose  in  Tahiti.  A 
native  would  produce  fire  with 

,  1  !     •  FlS-     20- 

it  in  a  few  seconds ;   he  him- 
self found  it  very  hard  work,  but  at  length  succeeded.     This 
stick-and-groove  process  has  been  repeatedly  described  in  the 


238  FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 

South  Ssa  Islands,  namely,  in  Tahiti,  New  Zealand,  the  Sand- 
wich, Tonga,  Samoa,  and  Radack  groups ; l  but  I  have  never 
found  it  distinctly  mentioned  out  of  this  region  of  the  world. 
Even  should  it  be  known  elsewhere,  its  isolation  in  a  particular 
district  round  which  other  processes  prevail  would  still  be  an 
ethnographical  fact  of  some  importance.  It  is  to  be  noticed 
also,  that  it  comes  much  nearer  than  "  fire-drilling"  to  the  yet 
simpler  process  of  striking  fire  with  two  pieces  of  split  bamboo. 
The  silicious  coating  of  this  cane  makes  it  possible  to  strike  fire 
with  it ;  and  this  is  done  in  Eastern  Asia,  and  also  in  the  great 
Malay  islands  of  Borneo  and  Sumatra,2  at  or  near  the  source 
whence  the  higher  Polynesian  race  is  supposed  to  have  spread 
over  the  Pacific  Islands.  But  it  would  appear  that  the  striking 
fire  with  bamboo,  simple  as  it  seems,  is  for  some  reason  not  so 
convenient  as  the  use  of  the  more  complex  friction-apparatus ; 
for  Marsden  seems  to  consider  the  fire-drill  as  the  regular  native 
instrument  in  Sumatra,  though  he  says  he  has  also  seen  the 
same  effect  produced  more  simply  by  rubbing  one  bit  of  bamboo, 
with  a  sharp  edge,  across  another. 

By  a  change  in  the  way  of  working,  the  "  stick-and-groove  " 
becomes  the  "  fire-drill."  I  have  been  obliged  to  coin  both 
these  terms,  no  suitable  ones  being  forthcoming.  The  fire-drill, 
in  its  simplest  form,  is  represented  in  Fig.  21 ;  and  Captain 
Cook's  remarks  on  it  and  its  use,  among  the  native  tribes  of 
Australia,  may  serve  also  as  a  general  description  of  it  all  over 
the  world,  setting  aside  minor  details.  "  They  produce  fire  with 
great  facility,  and  spread  it  in  a  wonderful  manner.  To  produce 
it  they  take  two  pieces  of  dry  soft  wood ;  one  is  a  stick  about 
eight  or  nine  inches  long,  the  other  piece  is  flat :  the  stick  they 
shape  into  an  obtuse  point  at  one  end,  and  pressing  it  upon  the 
other,  turn  it  nimbly  by  holding  it  between  both  their  hands,  as 

1  Darwin,  in  Narr.,  vol.  iii.  p.  488.  Polack,  vol.  i.  p.  165.  Tyerman  and  Bennet, 
vol.  i.  p.  141.  Buschmann,  'lies  Marquises,'  etc.;  Berlin,  1843,  pp.  140-1. 
Mariner,  Vocab.,  s.  vv.  tdo-qji,  tolonya,  coicnatoo.  S.  S.  Fanner,  'Tonga, '  etc.  : 
London,  185"),  p.  138.  Walpole,  'Four  Years  in  the  Pacific;'  London,  1849, 
vol.  ii.  p.  377.  Kotzebue,  vol.  iii.  p.  154.  See  mention  of  fire  made  by  rubbing, 
not  drilling,  two  pieces  of  wood,  iu  Rochefort,  '  lies  Antilles,'  p.  44i>. 

3  Bowring,  vol.  i  p.  206.  St.  John,  vol.  L  p.  137.  Marsden,  p.  60.  See  Tcnnent, 
'Ceylon,'  vol.  i.  p.  105. 


FIRE,   COOKING,   AND  VESSELS. 


239 


we  do  a  chocolate  mill,  often  shifting  their  hands  up,  and  then 

moving  them  down  upon  it,  to  increase  the  pressure  as  much  as 

possible.     By  this  method  they  get  fire  in  less  than  two  minutes, 

and  from  the  smallest  spark  they  increase  it  with  groat  speed 

and  dexterity."  :      The  same  instrument  is  known  in  Tasmania.2 

It  appears  usual  both  in  Australia  and  elsewhere  to  lay  the  lower 

piece  on  the  ground,  holding  it 

firm  with  feet  or  knees.     A  good 

deal  may  depend  on  the  kind  of 

wood  used,  and  its  dryness,  etc., 

for  in   some   countries  it  seems 

to   take    much   more   time   and 

labour,  two  men  often  working 

it,  one  beginning  at  the  top  of 

the  stick  when  his  companion's 

hands  have  come  down  nearly  to 

the  bottom,  and  so  on  till  the 

fire  comes. 

Contrasting  with  the  isolation 
of  the  stick  -  and  -  groove  in  a 
single  district,  the  geographical  range  of  the  simple  fire-drill  is 
immense.  Its  use  among  the  Australians,  and  Tasmanians, 
forms  one  of  the  characters  which  distinguish  their  culture  from 
that  of  the  Polynesians ;  while  it  appears  again  among  the 
Malays  in  Sumatra 3  and  the  Carolines.4  It  was  found  by  Cook 
in  Unalashka,5  and  by  the  Russians  in  Kamchatka ;  where,  for 
luoqy  years,  flint  and  steel  could  not  drive  it  out  of  use  among 
the  natives,  who  went  on  carrying  every  man  his  fire-sticks.6 
It  remains  in  use  among  the  Lepchas  of  Sikkim,  a  Tibetan  race 
of  Northern  India.7  There  is  reason  to  suppose  that  it  pre- 
vailed in  India  before  the  Aryans  invaded  tbe  country,  bringing 
(vith  them  an  improved  apparatus,  for  at  this  day  it  is  used  by 
the  Yenadis,  indigenes  of  South  India,8  and  by  the  wild  Veddahs 
of  Ceylon,  a  race  so  capable  of  resisting  foreign  innovation  that 

1  Cook,  First  Voy.  H.,  vol.  iii.  p.  234.     Angas,  S.  Australia,  pi.  27. 
•  Lubboek,  p.  440.  3  Marsden,  p.  60. 

Kotzebue,  vol.  iii.  p.  154.  5  Cook,  Third  Voy.,  vol.  ii.  p.  513. 

6  Kraclieninnikow,  p.  30.  7  Latham,  Descr.  litli.,  vol.  L  p.  89. 

8  Shurtt,  in  Tr.  Ktli.  Soc. ,  val.  iii.  p.  376. 


Fig.  21. 


240 


FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 


they  have  not  learnt  to  smoke  tobacco.1  It  prevails,  or  has 
done  so  within  modern  times,  in  South  and  West  Africa,2  and 
it  was  in  use  among  the  Guanches  of  the  Canary  Islands  in  the 
seventeenth  century.3  In  North  America  it  is  described  among 
Esquimaux  and  Indian  tribes.4  It  was  in  use  in  Mexico,5  and 

Fig.  22,  taken  from  an 
ancient  Mexican  picture- 
writing,  shows  the  drill 
being  twirled;  while  fire, 
drawn  in  the  usual  conven- 
tional manner,  comes  out 
from  the  hole  where  the 
point  revolves.  It  was  in 
use  in  Central  America,6  in 
the  West  Indies,7  and  in 


Fig.  22. 


South  America,  down  as  far 
as  the  Straits  of  Magellan.8 
The  name  of  "  fire-drill  "  has  not,  however,  been  adopted 
merely  with  reference  to  this  simplest  form.  This  rude  instru- 
ment is,  as  may  well  be  supposed,  very  wasteful  of  time  and 
power,  and  it  has  been  improved  by  several  contrivances  which 
so  closely  correspond  to  those  applied  to  boring-tools,  that  the 
most  convenient  plan  is  to  classify  them  together.  Even  the 
clumsy  plan  of  the  simple  fire-drill  has  been  found  in  use  for 
boring  holes.  It  has  been  mentioned  at  page  188,  as  in  use 
for  drilling  hard  stone  among  rude  Indians  of  South  America, 
and,  what  is  much  more  surprising,  the  natives  of  Madagascar 
bored  holes  by  working  their  drill  between  the  palms  of  their 

1  Tennent,  'Ceylon,'  vol.  ii.  p.  451.     Bailey  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.,  1863,  p.  291. 

2  Casalis,  p.   129.     Klemm,   C.  W.,  part  i.   p.  67.     Koelle,    'Kanuri  Vocab.  ;' 
p.  413. 

3  Glas,  '  Canary  Islands  ; '  London,  1764,  p.  8. 

4  Klemm,  *'.  G.,  vol.   ii.  p.  239.     Schoolcraft,   part  i.  p.    214.     Loskiel,  p.   70, 
Lafitau,  '  Mceurs  des  Sauvages  Ameriquains  ; '   Paris,  1724,  TO!,  ii.  p.  242. 

Kingsborough,  Selden  MS.,  Vatican  MS. 
Brasseur,  '  Popol-Vuh,'  pp.  64,218,  243. 

'  Oviedo,  '  Hysteria  General  de  las  Indias  ; '  Salamanca,  1 547,  vi.  5. 
8  Spix  and  Martins,  vol.  ii.  p.  387,  and  plates.     Purchas,  vol.  iii.  p.  983  ;  vol.  iv. 
p.  1345.     Molina,   vol.   ii.  p.   122.     Dobrizhoffer,  vol.  ii.  p.  118.     Garcilaso  de  la 
Vega,  '  Commentaries  Reales  '  (2nd  ed.)  ;  Madrid,  1723,  p.  198. 


FIRE,   COOKING,   AND   VESSELS. 


241 


hands,'  though  they  were  so  far  advanced  in  the  arts  as  to  make 
and  use  iron  tools,  and  of  course,  the  very  drills  worked  in  this 
primitive  way  were  pointed  with  iron. 

The  principle  of  the  common  carpenter's  brace,  with  which 
he  works  his  centre-bit,  is  applied  to  fire-making  by  a  very 
simple  device  represented 
in  Fig.  23,  which  is  drawn 
according  to  Mr.  Darwin's 
description  of  the  plan 
used  by  the  Gauchos  of 
the  Pampas  ;  "  taking 
an  elastic  stick  about 
eighteen  inches  long, 
he  presses  one  end  on 
his  breast,  and  the  other 
(which  is  pointed)  in  a 
hole  in  a  piece  of  wood, 

and  then  rapidly  turns  the  curved  part,  like  a  carpenter's  centre- 
bit."5  The  Gauchos,  it  should  be  observed,  are  not  savages, 
but  half- wild  herdsmen  of  mixed  European,  Indian,  and  African 
blood,  who  would  probably  only  use  such  a  means  of  kindling 
fire  when  the  flint  and  steel  were  for  the  moment  not  at  hand, 
and  their  fire-drill  is  not  only  like  the  carpenter's  brace,  but 
most  likely  suggested  by  it. 

To  wind  a  cord  or  thong  round  the  drill,  so  as,  by  pulling  the 
two  ends  alternately,  to  make  it  revolve  very  rapidly,  is  a  great 
improvement  on  mere  hand-twirling.  As  Kuhn  has  pointed  out, 
this  contrivance  was  in  use  for  boring  in  Europe  in  remote  times ; 
Odysseus  describes  it  in  telling  how  he  and  his  companions  put 
out  the  eye  of  the  Cyclops  : — 

ol  fJLff  fj.ox^bi>  f  \6vres  i\JSt>OV,  o^uv  fir'  &Kptf, 
o(pda\fj.y  tvepfiaav'  eyw  8'  e<f>vir£p6ti>  aepdtls, 
fill/toil'  &>s  ore  TIS  rpvny  SJpv  vrj'iuv  avfyp 
Tpviravip,  01  Sf  T"  evepdev  virovfftiovcriv  i/uairt 
aipOjUepoi  fKaiepde,  rb  Sf  Tpi\fi  t/u/xeccs  cue/.3 

1  Ellis,  'Madagascar,'  vol.  i.  p.  317. 

2  Darwin,  in  Narr. ,  vol.  iii.  p.  488. 

8  Kuhn,  '  Herabkunft  des  Feuers,'  p.  39.     Horn.  Od.,  ix.  332. 


24-2  FIRE,   COOKING,   AND  VESSELS. 

"  They  then  seizing  the  sharp-cut  stake  of  the  wood  of  the  olive 
Thrust  it  into  his  eye.  the  while  I  standing  above  them, 
Bored  it  into  the  hole  : — as  a  shipwright,  boreth  a  timber, 
Guiding  the  drill  that  his  men  below  drive  backward  and  forward, 
Pulling  the  ends  of  the  thong  while  the  point  runs  round  without 


In  modern  India,  butter-churns  are  worked  with  a  cord  in 
this  way,  and  the  Brahmans  still  use  a  cord-drill  in  producing 
the  sacred  fire,  as  will  be  more  fully  stated  presently.  Half- 
way round  the  world,  the  same  thing  is  found  among  the 
Esquimaux.  Davis  (after  whom  Davis' s  Straits  are  named)  de- 
scribes in  1586  how  a  Greenlander  "  beganne  to  kindle  a  fire 
in  this  maner  :  he  tooke  a  piece  of  a  board  wherein  was  a 
hole  halfe  thorow :  into  that  hole  he  puts  the  end  of  a  round 
stick  like  unto  a  bedstaffe,  wetting  the  end  thereof  in  Traiie, 
and  in  fashion  of  a  turner  with  a  piece  of  lether,  by  his  violent 


Fig.  24. 

. 

motion  doeth  very  speedily  produce  fire."1  The  cut,  Fig.  24, 
is  taken  from  a  drawing  of.  the  last  century,  representing  two 
Esquimaux  making  fire,  one  holding  a  cross-piece  to  keep  the 
spindle  steady  and  force  it  well  down  to  its  bearing,  while  the 

1  Hakluyt,  vol.  iii.  p.  104. 


FIRE,  COOKING,  AND  VESSELS.  213 

other  pulls  the  thong.1  This  form  of  the  apparatus  takes  two 
men  to  work  it,  but  the  Esquimaux  have  devised  a  modifica- 
tion of  it  which  a  man  can  work  alone.  Sir  E.  Belcher  thus 
describes  its  use  for  drilling  holes  by  means  of  a  point  of  green 
jade : — "  The  thong  .  .  .  being  passed  twice  round  the  drill, 
the  upper  end  is  steadied  by  a  mouthpiece  of  wood,  having  a 
piece  of  the  same  stone  imbedded,  with  a  countersunk  cavity. 
This  held  firmly  between  the  teeth  directs  the  tool.  Any  work- 
man would  be  astonished  at  the  performance  of  this  tool  on 
ivory  ;  but  having  once  tried  it  myself,  I  found  the  jar  or 
vibration  on  the  jaws,  head,  and  brain,  quite  enough  to  prevent 
my  repeating  it."2  There  is  a  set  of  Esquimaux  apparatus  for 
making  fire  in  the  same  manner,  in  the  Edinburgh  Industrial 


Fig.  25. 

Museum,  and  Fig.  25  is  intended  to  show  the  way  in  which  it  is 
worked.  The  thong-drill  with  the  mouthpiece  has  been  found 
in  use  in  the  Aleutian  Islands,  both  for  boring  holes  and  for 
making  fire.3  Lastly,  there  is  a  kind  of  cord-drill  used  by  the 
New  Zealanders  in  boring  holes  through  hard  greenstone,  etc., 
in  which  the  spindle  itself  is  weighted.  It  is  described  as 
"  sharp  wooden  stick  ten  inches  long,  to  the  centre  of  which  two 

i  Henry  Ell:s,  'Voyage  to  Hudson's  Bay  ;'  London,  1748,  pp.  132,  234. 

»  Sir  E.  Belcher,  in  Tr.  Etb.  Soc.,  1861,  p.  140. 

*  Kotzebue,  vol.  iii.  p.  155.  ^ 


244 


FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 


stones  are  attached,  so  as  to  exert  pressure  and  perform  the 
office  of  a  fly-wheel.  The  requisite  rotatory  motion  is  given  to 
the  stick  by  two  strings  pulled  alternately."1  There  must  of 
course  be  some  means  of  keeping  the  spindle  upright.  The 
New  Zealanders  do  not  seem  to  have  used  their  drill  for  fire- 
making  as  well  as  for  boring,  but  to  have  kept  to  their  stick- 
and-groove. 

To  substitute  for  the  mere  thong  or  cord  a  bow  with  a  loose 
string,  is  a  still  further  improvement,  for  one  hand  now  does 
the  work  of  two  in  driving  the  spindle.  The  centre,  in  which 
its  end  turns,  may  be  held  down  with  the  other  hand,  or  (as  is 
very  usual),  set  against  the  breast  of  the  operator.  The  bow- 
drill  thus  formed,  is  a  most  ancient  and  well-known  boring 
instrument,  familiar  to  the  artisan  in  modern  Europe  as  it  was 

in  ancient  Egypt.  The  only 
place  where  I  have  found  any 
notice  of  its  use  for  fire- 
making  is  among  the  North 
American  Indians.  The 
plate  from  which  Fig.  26  is 
taken  is  marked  by  School- 
craft  as  representing  the  ap- 
paratus used  by  the  Sioux, 
or  Dacotahs.  They,  as  well 
as  the  Naskapee  Indians  of 
Canada,  whom  Dr.  D.Wilson 


Fig.  26. 


notices   as   making  fire   with   a  bow-drill,   may  possibly  have 
caught  the  idea  from  the  European  boring  instrument.2 

Lastly,  there  is  a  curious  little  contrivance,  known  to  English 
toolinakers  as  the  "  pump-drill,"  from  its  being  worked  up  and 
down  like  a  pump.  That  kept  in  the  London  tool-shops  is  aU 
of  metal,  expanding  into  a  bulb  instead  of  the  disk  shown  in 
Fig.  27,  which  represents  the  kind  used  in  Switzerland,  consist- 
ing of  a  wooden  spindle,  armed  with  a  steel  point,  and  weighted 
with  a  wooden  disk.  A  string  is  made  fast  to  the  ends  of  the 
cross-piece,  and  in  the  middle  to  the  top  of  the  spindle.  As  the 

1  Thomson,  'New  Zealand,'  vol.  i.  p.  203. 

•  Schoolcraft,  partiii.  pi.  28.     D.  Wilson,  'Prehistoric  Man  ;'  vol.  ii.  p.  375. 


FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 


245 


hand  brings  the  cross-piece  down  it  unwinds  the  cord,  driving 
the  spindle  round  ;  as  the  hand  is  lifted  again,  the  disk,  acting 
as  a  fly-wheel,  runs  on  and  re-Minds  the  cord,  and  so  on. 
Holtzappfel  says  that  the  pump-drill  is  as  well  known  among 
the  Oriental  nations  as  the  breast-drill,  though  it  is  little  used  in 
England  except  by  china  and  glass  menders.1  Perhaps  it  may 
have  found  its  way  over  from  Asia  to  the  South  Sea  Islands  ;  at 
any  rate  it  is  found  there.  Fig.  28  shows  it  as  used  in  Fakaafo 
or  Bowditch  Island,  differing  from  the  Swiss  form  only  in  being 
armed  with  a  stone  instead  of  a  steel  point,  and  in  having  no 
hole  through  the  cross-piece.3  Mr.  Turner  describes  it  in  the 


Fig.  27. 


Fig.  28. 


neighbouring  Samoan  or  Navigators'  Islands,  as  pointed  with  a 
nail  or  a  sail-needle,  got  from  the  foreigners,3  but  the  specir 
presented  by  him  to  the  Hunterian  Museum  at  Glasgow  has 
stone  point.     The  natives  use  it  for  drilling  their 
made  of  shell ;  for  which  purpose,  as  for  drilling  holes 
it  is  peculiarly  adapted,  the  lightness  and  evennes 

i  Holtzappfel,    'Turning  and  Mechanical  Manipulation;'    London,   1356,  vol.  iL 
P>  *  Wilkes,  U.  S.  Exp.,  vol.  v.  p.  17.  '  Turner,  p.  273. 


246 


FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 


Fig.  29. 


sure  lessening  the  danger  of  cracking  these  brittle  materials. 
One  would  think  that  this  quality  would  make  the  pump-drill 
particularly  unsuitable  for  fire-making;  but  nevertheless,  by 
making  it  very  large  and  heavy,  it  has  been  turned  to  this 

service  in  North  America,  among  the 
Iroquois  Indians.  Fig.  29  (drawn 
to  a  small  scale)  represents  their 
apparatus,  which  is  thus  described 
by  Mr.  Lewis  H.  Morgan : — "  This 
is  an  Indian  invention,  and  of  great 
antiquity.  ...  It  consisted  of  an 
upright  shaft,  about  four  feet  in 
length,  and  an  inch  in  diameter, 
with  a  small  wheel  set  upon  the 
lower  part,  to  give  it  momentum. 
In  a  notch  at  the  top  of  the  shaft 
was  set  a  string,  attached  to  a  bow 
about  three  feet  in  length.  The 
lower  point  rested  upon  a  block  of 
dry  wood,  near  which  are  placed  small  pieces  of  punk.  When 
ready  to  use,  the  string  is  first  coiled  around  the  shaft,  by 
turning  it  with  the  hand.  The  bow  is  then  pulled  down- 
wards, thus  uncoiling  the  string,  and  revolving  the  shaft  towards 
the  left.  By  the  momentum  given  to  the  wheel,  the  string  is 
again  coiled  up  in  a  reverse  manner,  and  the  bow  again  drawn 
up.  The  bow  is  again  pulled  downwards,  and  the  revolution  of 
the  shaft  reversed,  uncoiling  the  string,  and  recoiling  it  as 
before.  This  alternate  revolution  of  the  shaft  is  continued, 
until  sparks  are  emitted  from  the  point  where  it  rests  upon  the 
piece  of  dry  wood  below.  Sparks  are  produced  in  a  few  moments 
by  the  intensity  of  the  friction,  and  ignite  the  punk,  which 
speedily  furnishes  a  fire."1 

It  is  now  necessary  to  notice  other  methods  of  producing  fire 
which  have  been  found  in  use  in  various  parts  of  the  world. 
There  is  a  well-known  scientific  toy  made  to  show  that  heat  is 
generated  by  the  compression  of  air.  It  consists  of  a  brass  tube 
closed  at  one  end,  into  which  a  packed  piston  is  sharply  forced 

1  L.  H.  Morgan,  'League  of  the  Iroquois;'  Koehester,  U.  S.,  1851,  p.  381. 


FIRE,   COOKING,  AND   VESSELS.  247 

down,  thus  igniting  a  piece  of  tinder  within  the  tube.  It  is 
curious  to  find  an  apparatus  on  this  principle  (made  in  hard 
wood,  ivory,  &c.)  used  as  a  practical  means  of  making  fire  in 
Birniuh,  and  even  among  the  Malays.1 

The  natives  of  Tierra  del  Fuego  are  notably  distinguished 
from  their  northern  neighbours  by  their  way  of  fire-making.  In 
1520,  Magalhaens  on  his  famous  voyage  visited  the  gigantic 
Patagonians,  who  thought  the  Spaniards  had  come  down  from 
heaven,  and  who,  explaining  to  the  European  visitors  the  native 
theology,  told  them  of  their  chief  god,  Setebos.  The  savages 
from  whom  Shakespeare  borrowed  these  traits  to  furnish  the 
picture  of  the  "servant-monster,"  Caliban,2  showed  their  manner 
of  making  fire,  which  was  by  the  friction  of  two  pieces  of  wood.* 
But  the  Fuegians  have  for  centuries  used  a  higher  method, 
striking  sparks  with  a  flint  from  a  piece  of  iron  pyrites  upon 
their  tinder.  This  process  is  described  as  still  in  use,4  and  is 
evidently  what  Captain  Wallis  meant  by  saying  (in  1767),  that 
"  To  kindle  a  fire  they  strike  a  pebble  against  a  piece  of 
munclic."5  A  much  earlier  account  of  the  same  thing  appears 
in  the  voyage  of  Sarmiento  de  Gamboa,  in  1579-80.6  Iron 
pyrites  answers  extremely  well  instead  of  the  steel,  and  was 
found  in  regular  use  in  high  northern  latitudes  in  America, 
among  the  Slave  and  Dog  Bib  Indians.7  It  is  probably  the 
"  iron-stone  "  which  the  Esquimaux  call  ujarak-saviminitik,  and 
from  which  they  strike  fire  with  a  fragment  of  flint,8  and  is 

1  Bastian,  'Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  ii.  p.  413  ;  Cameron,  'Malayan  India,'  p.  136. 

2  Cal.—"  Hast  thou  not  dropped  from  heaven  ? "     ('  Tempest,'  act  ii.  scene  2.) 
Cal.— 

"  It  would  control  ray  dam's  god,  Setebos."     (Id.,  act.  i.  scene  2.) 

3  Pigafetta,  in  Pinkcrton,  vol.  xi.     Their  process  was  the  simplest  hand-drilling,  as 
appears   (1577-80)  from  the  account  in  Drake's   'World  Encompassed,' Hak.  Soc. 
1854,  p.  48.  *  W.  P.  Snow,  'Tierra  del  Fuego,'  etc. ;  vol.  ii.  p.  360. 

4  Wallis,  in  Hawkesworth,  vol.  i.  p.  171. 

fi  Sai-miento  de  Gamboa,  '  Viage  al  Estrecho  de  Magallanes  ;'  Madrid,  1/6S,  p.  220. 
"  Y  unos  pedazos  de  pedernal,  pasados,  y  pintados  de  margaxita  de  oro  y  plata  :  j 
preguntandoles  que  para  que  era  aquello  ?  dixeron  i»or  sefuis,  que  para  sacar  fuego  ; 
y  luego  uno  de  ellos  torno  unas  plumas  de  las  que  trahia,  y  sirviendole  de  yesca,  sac»5 
fuego  con  el  pedernal.  Pargceme  que  es  (casca  ?)  de  metal  de  plata  ii  oro  de  veto, 
porque  es  al  natural  como  el  curiquixo  de  porco  en  el  Pini." 

'   Mackenzie,  '  Voyages  ;'  London,  180!,  p.  33.     Klemm,  C.  G.,  voL  ii.  p.  26. 

8  Hayes,  '  Arctic  Boat  Journey  ;'  London,  I860,  p.  217. 


248  FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 

perhaps  referred  to  in  Father  Le  Jeune's  statement  that  the 
Algonquin  Indians  strike  fire  with  two  minerals  (pierres  de 
mine}.1  The  use  of  iron  pyrites  for  striking  fire  was  known  to 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  it  shared  with  flint  the  name  of 
fire-stone,  Trvpirrjs,  pyrites,  which  it  and  some  other  metallic 
sulphurets  have  since  taken  entire  possession  of. 

The  Alashkans  are  reported  to  obtain  fire  by  striking  to- 
gether two  pieces  of  quartz  rubbed  with  sulphur  over  some  dry 
grass  or  moss,  strewed  with  feathers  where  the  sulphur  falls  ; 
and  similar  descriptions  of  the  process  are  given  in  the  adjacent 
islands.2  Father  Zucchelli,  who  was  a  missionary  in  West  Africa 
about  the  beginning  of  last  century,  gives  the  following  account 
of  the  way  in  which,  he  says,  the  negroes  made  fire  on  their 
journeys  : — "  When  they  found  a  fire-stone  (Fcuerstein)  on  the 
road,  they  lay  down  by  it  on  their  knees,  took  a  little  piece  of 
wood  in  their  hands,  and  threw  sand  between  the  stone  and  the 
wood,  rubbing  them  so  long  against  one  another  till  the  wood 
began  to  burn,  and  herewith  they  all  lighted  their  pipes,  and  so 
went  speedily  forth  again  smoking  on  their  journey."3  It  is 
possible  that  not  flint  (as  is  usual),  but  pyrites,  may  here  be 
meant  by  feuer stein. 

The  flint  and  steel  may  have  come  into  use  at  any  time  after 
the  beginning  of  the  Iron  age,  but  history  fails  to  tell  us  the 
date  of  its  introduction  in  Greece  and  Rome,  China,  and  most 
other  districts  of  the  Old  World.  In  modern  times  it  has  made 
its  way  with  iron  into  many  new  places,  though  it  has  not 
always  been  able  to  supersede  the  fire- sticks  at  once;  sometimes, 
it  seems,  from  a  difficulty  in  getting  flints.  For  instance  it  was 
necessary  in  Sumatra  to  import  the  flints  from  abroad,  and  thus 
they  did  not  come  immediately  into  general  use  among  the 
natives  ;  and  there  may  perhaps  be  a  similar  reason  for  the  fire- 
drill  having  held  its  ground  to  this  day  among  some  of  the  iron- 
using  races  of  Southern  Africa. 

The  Greeks  were  familiar  with  the  use  of  the  burning-lens  in 

1  Le  Jenne,  'Relation,'  etc.  (1634) ;  Paris,  1635,  p.  91.     Lafitau,  vol.  ii.  p.  242. 

3  Billings,  'Exp.  to  N.  Russia;1  p.  159.  Cook,  3rd  Voy.,  vol.  ii.  p.  513. 
Kotzebue,  vol.  iii.  p.  155. 

3  Zucchelli,  '  Merkwurdige  Missions-  und  Reise-Beschreibung  nach  Congo  ;'  Frank 
fort,  1715,  p.  344. 


FIRE,  COOKING,  AND  VESSELS.  249" 

the  time  of  Aristophanes,  who  mentions  it  in  the  '  Clouds,'  in  a 
dialogue  between  Socrates  and  Strepsiades : — 

"  Socrates.  Very  good :  now  I'll  set  yon  another  smart  question.  If  some 
one  entered  an  action  against  you  to  recover  five  talents,  tell  me,  how  wou'd 
you  cancel  it  1 


Strepriadet.  I  have  found  a  very  clever  way  to  cancel  the  suit,  as  you  will 

agree  yourself. 

Socrates.  What  kind  of  a  way  ? 

Strcyjsiades.  Have  you  ever  seen  that  stone  in  the  diuggists'  shops,  that 
pretty,  transparent  one,  that  they  light  fire  with? 

Socrates.  The  crystal,  you  mean  ? 

Strepsiades.  I  do. 

Socrates.  Well,  what  then  ? 

Strepsiades.  Suppose  I  take  this,  and  when  the  clerk  enters  the  suit,  I  stand 
thus,  a  long  way  off.  towards  the  sun,  and  melt  out  the  letters. 

Socrates.  Very  clever,  by  the  Graces  !  " * 

At  a  much  later  period  Pliny  mentions  that  glass  balls  with 
water  put  into  them,  when  set  opposite  to  the  sun,  get  so  hot 
as  to  set  clothes  on  fire ;  and  that  he  finds  surgeons  consider  tne 
best  means  of  cautery  to  be  a  crystal  ball  placed  opposite  to  the 
sun's  rays.2  The  Chinese  commonly  use  the  burning-lens  to 
light  fire  with,  as  well  as  the  flint  and  steel,  and  we  hear  of  the 
Siamese  using  it  to  produce  new  sacred  fire.3 

The  fact  that  fire  may  be  produced  by  reflecting  the  sun's 
rays  with  mirrors  was  known  as  early  as  Pliny's  time  (A.D. 
23-79),  as  he  remarks,  "  seeing  that  concave  mirrors  placed 
opposite  to  the  sun's  rays  ignite  things  more  easily  than  any 
other  fire."  4  There  is  some  reason  to  suppose  that  the  know- 
ledge of  this  phenomenon  worked  backwards  into  history,  at- 
taching itself  to  two  famous  names  of  old  times,  Archimedes 
and  Numa  Pompilius.  The  story  of  Archimedes  setting  the 
fleet  on  fire  at  Syracuse  with  burning  mirrors,  probably  un- 
known as  it  was  to  historians  for  centuries  after  his  time,  need 
not  be  further  remarked  on  here ;  but  the  story  of  Numa  re- 
appears on  the  other  side  of  the  world,  under  circumstances 
which  make  its  discussion  a  matter  of  importance  to  ethno- 
graphy. 

1  Aristoph.,  Nubes,  757,  etc.  2  Pliny,  xxxvi.  67,  xxxvii.  10. 

•  Davis,  vol.  iii.  p.  51.     Bastian,  '  Oestl.  Asien,'  vol.  iii.  p.  516. 
«  Pliny,  ii.  111. 


250  FIRE,  COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 

It  is  related  by  Plutarch  in  his  life  of  Numa,  written  in  the 
first  century,  that  among  the  ordinances  made  for  the  Vestal 
Virgins  when  they  were  established  in  Rome,  there  was  the 
following.  If  the  sacred  fire  which  it  was  their  duty  to  keep 
continually  burning  should  happen  to  go  out,  it  was  not  to  be 
lighted  again  from  another  fire,  but  new  fire  was  to  be  made 
by  lighting  from  the  sun  a  pure  and  undefiled  flame.  "And 
they  kindle  it  especially  with  vessels  which  are  shaped  hollow 
from  the  side  of  an  isosceles  triangle  with  a  (vertical)  right 
angle,  and  converge  from  the  circumference  to  a  single  centre. 
"When  such  an  instrument  is  set  opposite  to  the  sun,  so  that 
the  impinging  rays  from  all  sides  crowd  and  fold  together 
round  the  centre,  it  divides  the  rarefied  air,  and  quickly  kindles 
the  lightest  and  driest  matters  applied  to  it,  the  beams  acquir- 
ing by  the  repulsion  a  body  and  fiery  stroke." l  Stories  of 
Numa's  ordinances  will  hardly  be  claimed  as  sober  history, 
though  it  is  possible  that  such  a  process  as  this  may  have  been 
used,  at  least  in  late  times,  to  rekindle  the  fire  of  Vesta.  But 
there  is  in  Festus  another  account  of  the  way  in  which  this 
was  done,  having  in  its  favour  every  analogy  from  the  practices 
of  kindling  the  sacred  fire  among  our  Indo-European  race,  both 
in  Asia  and  in  Europe.  "  If  the  fire  of  Vesta  were  extinguished, 
the  virgins  were  scourged  by  the  priests,  whose  practice  it  was 
to  drill  into  a  board  of  auspicious  wood  till  the  fire  came,  which 
was  received  and  carried  to  the  temple  by  the  virgin,  in  a  brazen 
colander."2 

The  parallel  passage  to  that  in  the  life  of  Numa  is  to  be 
found  in  the  account  of  the  feast  of  Raymi,  or  the  Sun,  cele- 
brated in  ancient  Peru,  according  to  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega, 
whose  '  Commentaries '  were  first  published  in  1G09-16,  the 
Spanish  discovery  having  taken  place  in  1527.  He  says  this 
festival  was  celebrated  at  the  summer  solstice.  "  The  fire  for 
this  sacrifice  had  to  be  new,  given,  as  they  said,  by  the  hand 
of  the  sun.  For  which  purpose  they  took  a  great  bracelet, 

1  Plutarch,  'Vita  Numse,'  ix.  7. 

2  Festus.       "Ignis    Vestae    si    qnando   interstinctus    esset,    virgines    verberibua 
afficiebantur    a    pontificibus,    quibus    mos    erat    tabulaiu   felicis    materise    tamdiu 
terebrare,   qnousque  exceptum   ignem   cribro  aeneo  virgo  in  swlem   ferret."      See 
Val.  Max.,  L  L  6. 


FIRE,   COOKING    AND  VESSELS.  251 

which  they  call  Chipana  (like  the  others  which  the  Tncas  com- 
monly wore  on  the  left  wrist),  which  bracelet  the  high  priest 
kq>t ;  it  was  larger  than  the  common  ones,  and  had  as  its  me- 
dallion a  concave  cup  like  a  half  orange,  highly  polished ;  they 
set  it  against  the  sun,  and  at  a  certain  point  where  the  ravs 
issuing  from  the  cup  came  together,  they  put  a  little  finely- 
carded  cotton,  as  they  did  not  know  how  to  make  tinder,  which 
shortly  took  fire,  as  it  naturally  does.  With  this  fire,  thus 
given  by  the  hand  of  the  Sun,  the  sacrifice  was  burnt,  and  all 
the  meat  of  the  day  was  roasted.  And  they  carried  some  of 
the  fire  to  the  Temple  of  the  Sun,  and  to  the  House  of  the 
Virgins,  where  they  kept  it  up  all  the  year,  and  it  was  a  bad 
omen  if  they  let  it  out  in  any  way.  If,  on  the  eve  of  the  fes- 
tival, which  was  when  the  necessary  preparations  for  the  fol- 
lowing day  were  made,  there  was  no  sun  to  light  the  new  fire, 
they  made  it  with  two  thin  smooth  sticks  as  big  as  one's  little 
finder,  and  half  a  yard  long,  boring  one  against  the  other 
(lj  im-nando  uno  con  otro) ;  these  little  sticks  are  cinnamon 
coloured,  and  they  call  both  the  sticks  themselves  and  the  fire- 
niakiug  V-yica,  one  and  the  same  term  serving  for  noun  and 
verb.  The  Indians  use  them  instead  of  flint  and  steel,  and 
carry  them  on  their  journeys  to  get  fire  when  they  have  to  pass 
the  night  in  uninhabited  places,"  etc.  etc.1 

If  circumstantiality  of  detail  were  enough  to  make  a  story 
credible,  we  might  be  obliged  to  receive  this  one,  and  even  to 
argue  on  the  wonderful  agreement  of  the  manner  of  kindling  the 
sacred  fire  in  Rome  and  in  Peru.  But  the  coincidences  between 
Gareilaso's  Virgins  of  the  Sun  and  Plutarch's  Vestal  Virgins  go 
farther  than  this.  We  are  not  only  expected  to  believe  that 
there  were  Virgins  of  the  Sun,  that  they  kept  up  a  sacred  fire 
whose  extinction  was  an  evil  omen,  and  that  this  fire  was 
lighted  bv  the  sun's  rays  concentrated  in  a  concave  mirror. 
We  are  also  told  that  in  Cuzco,  as  in  Rome,  the  virgin  found 
unfaithful  was  to  be  punished  by  the  special  punishment  of 
being  buried  alive.2  This  is  really  too  much.  Whatever  may 

1  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  p.  198. 

-  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  p.  109.  Compare  Diego  Fernandez,  'Hist  del  Pern,' 
Seville,  1571  ;  "y  nadie  podia  tratar.m con versar  con  estas  Mamaconas.  Ysialguno 
lo  intentana,  luego  le  interrauan  biuo." 


252  FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 

be  the  real  basis  of  fact  in  the  accounts  of  the  Virgins  of  the 
Sun  and  the  feast  of  Raymi,  the  inference  seems,  to  me  at  least, 
most  probable,  that  part  or  all  of  the  accessory  detail  is  not 
history,  but  the  realization  of  an  idea  of  which  Garcilaso  himself 
strikes  the  key-note  when  he  says  of  this  same  feast  of  Ray  mi, 
that  it  was  celebrated  by  the  Incas  "  in  the  city  of  Cozco,  iciiich 
teas  another  Rome  "  (que  fue  otra  Roma).1  Those  who  happen 
to  have  experience  of  the  old  chroniclers  of  Spanish  America 
know  how  the  whole  race  was  possessed  by  a  passion  for  bring- 
ing out  the  Old  World  stories  in  a  new  guise,  with  a  local 
habitation  and  a  name  in  America.  Garcilaso' s  story  of  the 
burning-mirror,  supposing  it  to  be  an  adaptation  from  Plutarch, 
would  not  even  be  the  best  illustration  of  this  modern  phase  of 
Mythology ;  that  distinction  must  be  reserved  for  the  repro- 
duction by  another  chronicler  of  another  of  Plutarch's  stories, 
that  of  the  shout  that  was  raised  when  the  Roman  Herald 
proclaimed  the  liberty  of  the  Greeks, — such  a  shout  that  it 
brought  the  crows  tumbling  down  into  the  racecourse  from  the 
sky  above.2  The  Incas,  says  Sarmieuto,  "  were  so  feared,  that  if 
they  went  out  through  the  kingdom,  and  allowed  a  curtain  of 
their  litters  to  be  lifted  that  their  vassals  might  see  them,  they 
raised  so  great  an  acclamation  that  they  made  the  birds  fall 
from  where  they  were  flying  above,  so  that  the  people  could 
catch  them  in  their  hands."3 

Against  the  abstract  possibility  of  Garcilaso' s  story  of  the 
lighting  of  the  sacred  fire  with  concave  mirrors,  there  is  no  more 
to  be  said  than  against  Plutarch's.  With  a  good  parabolic 
mirror  only  two  inches  in  diameter,  I  have  lighted  brown  paper 
under  an  English  sun  of  no  extraordinary  power,  and  other 
surfaces  which  will  make  a  good  caustic  will  answer,  though  of 
course  they  have  less  burning  power  than  a  paraboloid  of 
revolution  of  equal  size.  There  is  even  a  material  basis  out  of 
which  the  Peruvian  story  may  have  grown.  In  the  ancieut 
tombs  of  Peru,  mirrors  both  of  pyrites  and  obsidian  have  been 
found.  Some,  three  or  four  inches  in  diameter,  were  probably 
mere  broken  nodules  of  pyrites,  polished  on  the  flat  side,  but 

1  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  p.  195.  2  Pint.    T.  Quinct.  Flarninius,  x. 

*  Sarmiento,  MS.  cited  in  Prescott,  Peru,  vol.  L  p.  25. 


FIRE,   COOKING,   AND  VESSELS.  233 

one  is  mentioned  measuring  about  a  foot  and  a  half  (probably  in 
circumference),  which  had  a  beautifully-polished  concave  surface, 
so  as  to  magnify  objects  considerably,1  and  such  a  mirror  may 
have  been  used  for  making  fire.  Indeed,  the  objection  to  the 
story  of  the  Virgins  of  the  Sun  is  not  that  any  of  the  details 
I  have  mentioned  must  of  necessity  be  untrue,  but  that  the 
apparent  traces  of  absorption  from  Plutarch  invalidate  whatever 
rests  on  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega's  unsupported  testimony. 

To  conclude  the  notice  of  the  art  of  fire-making  in  general, 
its  last  phase,  the  invention  of  lucifer  matches  in  our  own  day, 
is  fast  spreading  over  the  world,  and  bringing  most  other  fire- 
making  instruments  down  to  the  condition  of  curious  relics  of  a 
past  time. 

But  though  some  of  the  higher  methods  date  far  back  in  the 
history  of  the  Old  World,  the  employment  of  the  wooden  friction- 
apparatus  in  Europe,  even  for  the  practical  purposes  of  ordinary 
life,  has  come  up  through  the  classical  and  medieval  times  into 
the  last  century,  and  for  all  we  know  it  may  still  exist.  Pliny 
speaks  of  its  finding  a  use  among  the  outposts  of  armies  and 
among  shepherds,  a  stone  to  strike  fire  with  not  being  always  to 
be  had;2  and  in  a  remarkable  account  dating  from  1768,  which 
will  be  quoted  presently,  its  use  by  Russian  peasants  for  making 
fire  in  the  woods  is  spoken  of  as  an  existing  custom,  just  as,  at 
a  much  more  recent  date,  it  is  mentioned  that  the  Portuguese 
Brazilians  still  have  recourse  to  the  fire-drill,  when  no  other 
means  of  getting  a  light  are  forthcoming.3  For  the  most  part, 
however,  the  early  use  of  the  instrument  in  the  Old  World  is 
only  to  be  traced  in  ancient  myths,  in  certain  ceremonial 
practices  which  have  been  brought  down  unchanged  into  a  new 
state  of  culture,  and  in  descriptions  by  Greek  and  Roman 
writers  of  the  art.  It  had  lost,  even  then,  its  practical  im- 

1  Juan  &  Ulloa,  'Relacion  Historica;'  Madrid,  1748,  p.  619. 

2  Pliny,  xvi.  77. 

3  Pr.  Max.  v.   Wled.,  '  Eeise  nach  Brasilien'  (1815—7),  vol.  ii.  p.  19.     Hylten- 
Cavallius,    '  Wai-end   och  Wirdarne,'  Stockholm,   1863-4,  vol.  i.  p.  189,  stat< 
within  a  generation  there  were  old  foresters  in  districts  of  Sweden  who  could  still 
practise  the  ancient  art  of  making  fire  by  violently  twirling  a  dry  oak  stick  with 
their  hands  against  a  dry  piece  of  wood.     S.e  also  the  account  of  the  gnid-eld  or 
"rubbing-fire,"  which  was  carried  over  the  knd  as   "need-fire."      L^ote  to  3l^ 
Edition.] 


254  FIRE,   COOKING,  AND   VESSELS. 

portance  in  everyday  life,  though  lingering  on,  as  it  still  does  in 
our  own  day,  in  rites  for  which  it  was  necessary  to  use  pure  icill 
fire,  not  the  tame  fire  that  lay  like  a  domestic  animal  upon  the 
hearth. 

The  traditions  of  inventors  of  the  art  of  fire-making  by  the 
friction  of  wood  have  in  so  far  an  historical  value,  that  they 
bring  clearly  into  view  a  period  when  this  was  the  usual  practice. 
There  is  a  Chinese  myth  that  points  to  such  a  state  of  things, 
and  which  moreover  presents,  in  the  story  of  the  "  fire-bird," 
an  analogy  with  a  set  of  myths  belonging  to  our  own  race, 
which  may  well  be  due  to  a  deep-lying  ethnological  connexion. 
"  A  great  sage  went  to  walk  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  moon  and 
the  sun ;  he  saw  a  tree,  and  on  this  tree  a  bird,  which  pecked  at 
it  and  made  fire  come  forth.  The  sage  was  struck  with  this, 
took  a  branch  of  the  tree  and  produced  fire  from  it,  and  thence 
this  great  personage  was  called  Suy-jin."1  The  friction- appara- 
tus itself,  apparently  of  the  kind  spoken  of  here  as  the  fire-drill, 
is  mentioned  in  Morrison's  Chinese  Dictionary.  "  Suy,  an 
instrument  to  obtain  fire.  A  speculum  for  obtaining  fire  from 
the  sun  is  called  suy  or  kin-sny.  Muh-suy,  an  utensil  to 
procure  fire  from  wood  by  rotatory  friction.  Suy-jin-she,  the 
first  person  who  procured  fire  for  the  use  of  man."  The  very 
existence  of  a  Chinese  name  for  the  fire-drill  shows  that  it  is,  or 
has  been,  in  use  in  the  country. 

The  absence  of  evidence  relating  to  fire-making  in  the  Bible 
is  remarkable.  If,  indeed,  the  following  passage  from  the 
cosmogony  of  Sanchoniathon  be  founded  on  a  Phrenician  legend, 
it  preserves  an  old  Semitic  record  of  the  use  of  the  fire- stick. 
"  They  say  that  from  the  wind  Kolpia,  and  his  wife  Baan,  which 
is  interpreted  Night,  there  were  born  mortal  men,  called  2Eon 
and  Protogonos ;  and  y£on  found  how  to  get  food  from  trees. 
And  those  born  from  them  were  called  Genos  and  Genea,  and 
they  inhabited  Phomicia.  .  .  .  Moreover,  they  say  that,  again, 
from  Genos,  son  of  yEon  and  Protogonos,  they  were  born  mortal 
children,  whose  names  were  Phos,  Pur,  and  Phlox  (Light,  Fire, 
and  Flame).  These,  they  say,  found  out  how  to  make  fire  from 
the  friction  of  pieces  of  wood,  and  taught  its  use."2  Fire- 

1  Goguet,  vol.  iii.  p.  321.    See  Kuhn,  p.  28,  etc.  2  Euseb.,  Praep.  Evang.  i.  x. 


FIRE,   COOKING,  AXD  VESSELS.  255 

making  by  friction  is  not  unknown  to  the  Arabs,  their  instru- 
ment being  the  simple  fire-drill. 

Though  direct  history  does  not  tell  us  that  the  Finns  and 
Lapps  used  the  fire-drill  before  they  had  the  flint  and  steel, 
there  is  a  passage  safely  preserving  the  memory  of  its  use  in  a 
Finnish  poem,  whose  native  metre  is  familiar  to  our  ears  from 
its  imitation  in  '  Hiawatha  ;  ' 

"  Panu  parka,  Tuonan  poika, 
kirnusi  tulisen  kirnim, 
sakeisin  saihytteli, 
pukemissa  puhtaissa, 
walkehissa  waatteissa." 

"  Panu,  the  poor  son  of  Tuoni. 
Churning  fiercely  at  the  fire-chnrn, 
Scattering  fiery  sparks  around  him, 
Clothed  in  a  pure  white  garment, 
In  a  white  and  shining  garment." ' 

It  is,  however,  by  our  own  race  that  the  most  remarkable 
body  of  evidence  of  the  ancient  use  of  the  fire-drill  has  been 
preserved.  The  very  instrument  still  used  in  India  for  kindling 
the  sacrificial  fire  seems  never  to  have  changed  since  the  time 
when  our  ancestors  left  their  eastern  home  to  invade  Europe. 
It  is  thus  described : — "  The  process  by  which  fire  is  obtained 
from  wood  is  called  churning,  as  it  resembles  that  by  which 
butter  in  India  is  separated  from  milk.  ...  It  consists  in 
drilling  one  piece  of  arani-wood  into  another  by  pulling  a 
string  tied  to  it  with  a  jerk  with  the  one  hand,  while  the  other 
is  slackened,  and  so  alternately  till  the  wood  takes  fire.  The 
fire  is  received  on  cotton  or  flax  held  in  the  hand  of  an  assist- 
ant Brahman."2  By  this  description  it  would  seem  that  the 
Indian  instrument  is  the  same  in  principle  as  the  Esquimaux 
thong-drill,  shown  in  Fig.  24.  It  is  driven  by  a  three-stranded 
cord  of  cowhair  and  hemp ;  and  there  is  probably  a  piece  of 
wood  pressed  down  upon  the  upper  end  of  the  spindle,  to  keep 
it  down  to  its  bearing.3  In  the  name  of  Prometheus,  the  fire- 

1  Kuhn,  p.  110.  2  Stevenson,  Sama  Veda,  p.  7. 

3  If  so,  the  upper  and  lower  blocks  may  be  the  upper  and  lower  arani,  and  the 
the  prainantha,   or  l-dtra.     See  Kuhn,  pp.  13,  15,  73  ;  also  BoelitlAngk  and 


256  FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 

maker,  the  close  connection  with  the  Sanskrit  name  of  this 
spindle,  pramantha,  has  never  been  broken.  Possibly  both  he 
and  the  Chinese  Suy-jin  may  be  nothing  more  than  personifica- 
tions of  the  fire-drill. 

Professor  Kuhn,  in  his  mythological  treatise  on  'Fire  and 
Ambrosia,'  has  collected  a  quantity  of  evidence  from  Greek  and 
Latin  authors,  which  makes  it  appear  that  the  fire-making  in- 
strument, whose  use  was  kept  up  in  Europe,  was  not  the  stick- 
and-groove,  but  the  fire-drill.  The  operation  is  distinctly 
described  as  boring  or  drilling ;  and  it  seems,  moreover,  that 
the  fire-drill  was  worked  in  ancient  Europe,  as  in  India  and 
among  the  Esquimaux,  with  a  cord  or  thong,  for  the  spindle  is 
compared  to,  or  spoken  of  as,  a  rpv-avov,  which  instrument,  as 
appears  in  the  passage  quoted  from  the  Odyssey  at  page  241, 
was  a  drill  driven  by  a  thong.1 

The  traces  of  the  old  fire-making  in  modern  Europe  lie,  for 
the  most  part,  in  close  connexion  with  the  ancient  and  wide- 
spread rite  of  the  New  Fire,  which  belongs  to  the  Aryans  among 
other  branches  of  the  human  race,  and  especially  with  one  variety 
of  this  rite,  which  has  held  its  own  even  in  Germany  and  Eng- 
land into  quite  late  times,  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  the  Church 
to  put  it  down.  This  is  what  the  Germans  call  nothfeuer,  and 
we,  need/ire ;  though  whether  the  term  is  to  be  understood  liter- 
ally, or  whether*  it  has  dropped  a  guttural,  and  stands  for  fire  made 
by  kneading  or  rubbing,  is  not  clear. 

What  the  nature  and  object  of  the  needfire  is,  may  be  seen 
in  Reiske's  account  of  the  practice  in  Germany  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  : — "  "When  a  murrain  has  broken  out  among  the 
great  and  small  cattle,  and  the  herds  have  suffered  much  harm, 
the  farmers  determine  to  make  a  needfire.  On  an  appointed 
day  there  must  be  no  single  flame  of  fire  in  any  house  or  on 
any  hearth.  From  each  house  straw,  and  water,  and  brush- 
wood must  be  fetched,  and  a  stout  oak-post  driven  fast  into  the 
ground,  and  a  hole  bored  through  it ;  in  this  a  wooden  wind- 

Eoth,  s.  v.  arani,  cdtra.  The  anointing  with  butter  (Kuhn,  p.  78),  corresponds  to 
the  use  of  train  oil  by  the  Esquimaux. 

1  Kuhn,   'Hera  kunft  des   Feuers,'  etc.,  pp.  36—40,  citing  Tlieophra^tus,  Hesy- 
cbius,  Siiuplicius,  Festus,  etc. 


FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS.  257 

lass  is  stuck,  well  smeared  with  cart-pitch  and  tar,  and  turned 
r  jund  so  long  that,  with  the  fierce  heat  and  force,  it  gives  forth 
fire.  This  is  caught  in  proper  materials,  increased  with  straw, 
heath,  and  brushwood,  till  it  creaks  out  into  a  full  needfire ;  and 
this  must  he  somewhat  spread  'out  lengthways  between  walls  or 
fences,  and  the  cattle  and  horses  hunted  with  sticks  and  whips 
two  or  three  times  through  it,"  etc.1  Various  ways  of  arran«in» 
the  apparatus  are  mentioned  by  Reiske  and  other  authorities 
quoted  by  Grimm,  such  as  fixing  the  spindle  between  two  posts, 
etc.  How  the  spindle  is  turned  is  sometimes  doubtful ;  but  in 
several  places  the  Indian  practice  of  driving  it  with  a  rope  wound 
round  it,  and  pulled  backwards  and  forwards,  comes  clearly  into 
view ;  while  sometimes  a  cart  wheel  is  spun  round  upon  an 
axle ;  or  a  spindle  is  worked  round  with  levers,  or  two  planks 
are  rubbed  violently  together,  till  the  fire  comes.2 

The  needfire  seems  to  have  been  kept  up  to  late  years  in 
Germany.  In  Great  Britain  the  most  modern  account  I  have 
met  with  dates  from  1826.3  The  '  Mirror '  of  June  24th  of  that 
year  takes  from  the  '  Perth  Courier  '  a  description  of  the  rite,  as 
performed  not  far  from  Perth,  by  a  farmer  who  had  lost  several 
cattle  by  some  disease  : — "  A  few  stones  were  piled  together  hi 
the  barn-yard,  and  wood-coals  having  been  laid  thereon,  the  fuel 
was  ignited  by  will-fire,  that  is,  fire  obtained  by  friction :  the 
neighbours  having  been  called  in  to  witness  the  solemnity,  the 
cattle  were  made  to  pass  through  the  flames,  in  the  order  of  their 
dignity  and  age,  commencing  with  the  horses  and  ending  with 
the  swine." 

Some  varieties  of  the  rite  of  the  New  Fire,  connected  with 
the  Sun-worship  so  deeply  rooted  in  the  popular  mind  from 
before  the  time  of  the  Vedas,  were  countenanced,  or  at  least 
tolerated,  by  the  Church.  Such  are  the  bonfires  at  Easter, 
Midsummer  Eve,  and  some  other  times ;  and,  in  one  case,  there 
is  ground  for  supposing  that  the  old  rite  was  taken  up  into  the 
Roman  Church,  in  the  practice  of  putting  out  the  church  candles 

1  Grimm,  D.  M.,  p.  570.     Cord  fire-drill  used  as  toy  in  Switzerland,  ibid.  p.  573. 
-  Grimm,  D.  M.,  pp.  570—9.     See  ante,  p.  253,  note. 

3  Kuhn,  p.  4.0.      Wuttke,    '  Deutscher  Yoiksaberg'.aube ; '   Hamburg,  1860,  p.  92. 
Brand,  vol.  iii.  p.  286. 


253  FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 

on  Easter  Eve,  and  lighting  them  again  with  consecrated  new- 
made  fire, — 

"  On  Easter  Eve  the  fire  all  is  quencht  in  every  place, 
And  fresh  againe  from  out  the  Hint  is  fetcht  with  solemne  grace  : 
The  priest  doth  hnlow  this  against  great  daungers  many  one, 
A  brande  whereof  doth  every  man  with  greedie  mind  take  home, 
That,  when  the  feareful  storme  appeares,  or  tempest  black  arise, 
By  lighting  this  he  safe  may  be  from  stroke  of  hurtful  skies." l 

Here  the  traces  of  the  Indian  mythology  come  out  with 
beautiful  clearness.  The  lightning  is  the  fire  that  flies  from  the 
heavenly  fire-churn,  as  the  gods  whirl  it  in  the  clouds.  The 
New  Fire  is  its  representative  on  earth  ;  and,  like  the  thunder- 
bolt, preserves  from  the  lightning  flash  the  house  in  which  it  is, 
for  the  lightning  strikes  no  place  twice. 

It  has  been  stated  by  Montanus  that  in  very  early  times  the 
perpetual  lamps  in  churches  were  lighted  by  fire  made  by  fric- 
tion of  dry  wood.2  But  in  the  ceremony  of  later  times  the  flint 
and  steel  has  superseded  the  ancient  friction-fire ;  and,  indeed, 
the  "Western  clergy,  as  a  rule,  discountenanced  it  as  heathenish. 
In  the  Capitularies  of  Carloman,  in  the  eighth  century,  there  is 
a  prohibition  of  "  illos  sacrilegos  ignes  quos  niedjyr  vocant."  3 
The  result  of  this  opposition  by  the  Church  was,  in  great 
measure,  to  break  the  connexion  between  the  old  festivals  of  the 
Sun,  which  the  Church  allowed,  and  the  lighting  of  the  needfire, 
which  is  so  closely  connected  with  the  Sun-worship  in  our 
ancient  Aryan  mythology.  Still,  even  in  Germany,  there  are 
documents  that  bring  the  two  together.  A  glossary  to  the 
Capitularies  says,  "  the  rustic  folks  in  many  places  in  Germany, 
and  indeed  on  the  feast  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  pull  a  stake 
from  a  hedge  and  bind  a  rope  round  it,  which  they  pull  hither 
and  thither  till  it  takes  fire,"  etc.;  and  a  Low  German  book  of 
1593  speaks  of  the  "  nodfure,  that  they  sawed  out  of  wood  "  to 
light  the  St.  John's  bonfire,  and  through  which  the  people  leapt 
and  ran,  and  drove  their  cattle.4 

1  Brand,  'Popular  Antiquities;'  London,  1853,  vol.  i.  p.  157. 

*  Kelly,  '  Curiosities  of  European  Tradition,'  p.  47. 

*  Cap.  Carlomanni  in  Grimm,  D.  M.,  p.  570. 

4  Grimm,  D.  M.,  pp.  570,  579.     See  also  Migne,  Lex  s.  v.  "Nedifri." 


FIRE,  COOKING,  AND  VESSELS.  259 

It  appears,  however,  that  the  Eastern  and  Western  churches 
differed  widely  in  their  treatment  of  the  old  rite.  The  Western 
clergy  discountenanced,  and,  as  far  as  they  could,  put  down  the 
needfire  :  but  in  Russia  it  was  not  only  allowed,  but  was  (and 
very  likely  may  be  still)  practised  under  ecclesiastical  sanction, 
the  priest  being  the  chief  actor  in  the  ceremony.  This  interesting 
fact  seems  not  to  have  been  known  to  Grimm  and  Kuhn,  and 
the  following  passage,  which  proves  it,  is  still  further  remarkable 
as  asserting  that  the  ancient  fire-making  by  friction  was  still 
used  in  Russia  for  practical  as  well  as  ceremonial  purposes  in 
the  last  century.  It  is  contained  in  an  account  of  the  adventures 
of  four  Russian  sailors,  who  were  driven  by  a  storm  upon  the 
desert  island  of  East-Spitzbergen.1  "  They  knew,  however,  that 
if  one  rubs  violently  together  two  pieces  of  dry  wood,  one  hard 
and  the  other  soft,  the  latter  will  catch  fire.  Besides  this  being 
the  way  in  which  the  Russian  peasants  obtain  fire  when  they  are 
in  the  woods,  there  is  also  a  religious  ceremony,  performed  in 
every  village  where  there  is  a  church,  which  could  not  have  been 
unknown  to  them.  Perhaps  it  will  be  not  disagreeable  for  me  here 
to  give  an  account  of  this  ceremony,  though  it  does  not  belong 
to  the  story.  The  18th  of  August,  Old  Style,  is  called  by  the 
Russians  Frol  i  Larior,  these  being  the  names  of  two  martyrs, 
called  Florus  and  Laurus  in  the  Roman  Kalendar ;  they  fall, 
according  to  this  latter,  on  the  29th  of  the  said  month,  when 
the  Festival  of  the  Beheading  of  John  is  celebrated.  On  this 
day  the  Russian  peasants  bring  their  horses  to  the  village  church, 
at  the  side  of  which  they  have  dug  the  evening  before  a  pit  with 
two  outlets.  Each  horse  has  his  bridle,  which  is  made  of  lime- 
tree  bark.  They  let  the  horses,  one  after  the  other,  go  into  this 
pit,  at  the  opposite  outlet  of  which  the  priest  stands  with  an 
aspergiug-brush  in  his  hand,  with  which  he  sprinkles  them  with 
holy  water.  As  soon  as  the  horses  are  come  out,  their  bridles 
are  taken  off,  and  they  are  made  to  go  between  two  fires,  which 
are  kindled  with  what  the  Russians  call  Givoy  agon,  that  is, 
'living  fire,'  of  which  I  will  give  the  explanation,  after  remarking 
that  The  peasants  throw  the  bridles  of  the  horses  into  one  of 

1  P.  L.  le  Roy,    'Eraahlung  der  Begebenheiten,'  etc. ;  Riga,  1760.     (An  E.  Tr.  in 
Pinkerton,  vol.  i.) 


2GO  FIRE,  COOKIXG,  AND  VESSELS. 

these  fires  to  burn  them  up.  Here  is  the  manner  of  kindling 
this  Givoy  agon,  or  living  fire.  Some  men  take  hold  of  the 
ends  of  a  maple  staff,  very  dry,  and  about  a  fathom  long.  This 
staff  they  hold  fast  over  a  piece  of  birch- wood,  which  must  also 
be  very  dry,  and  whilst  they  vigorously  rub  the  staff  upon  the 
last  wood,  which  is  much  softer  than  the  first,  it  inflames  in  a 
short  time,  and  serves  to  kindle  the  pair  of  fires,  of  which  I  have 
just  made  mention." 

To  sum  up  now,  in  a  few  words,  the  history  of  the  art  of 
making  fire,  it  appears  that  the  common  notion  that  the  friction 
of  two  pieces  of  wood  was  the  original  method  used,  has  strong 
and  wide-lying  evidence  in  its  favour,  and  very  little  that  can  be 
alleged  against  it.  It  has  been  seen  that  in  many  districts  where 
higher  methods  have  long  prevailed,  its  former  existence  as  a 
household  art  is  proved  by  traces  that  have  come  down  to  us  in 
several  different  ways.  Where  the  use  of  pyrites  for  striking 
fire  is  found  existing  in  company  with  it  in  North  America,  it  is 
at  least  likely  that  the  fire-stick  is  the  older  instrument.  Per- 
haps the  most  notable  fact  bearing  on  this  question  is  the  use  of 
pyrites  by  the  miserable  inhabitants  of  Tierra  del  Fuego.  I  do 
not  know  that  the  fire-sticks  have  ever  been  seen  among  them, 
but  it  seems  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  they  were  used  till 
they  were  supplanted  by  the  discovery  of  the  fire-making  property 
of  pyrites,  than  to  make  so  insignificant  a  people  an  exception  to 
a  world-wide  rule.  This  art  of  striking  fire  instead  of  labori- 
ously producing  it  with  the  drill  is  not,  indeed,  the  only  thing 
in  which  the  culture  of  this  race  stands  above  that  of  their 
northern  neighbours,  for,  as  has  been  mentioned,  these  last  were 
found  using  no  navigable  craft  but  rafts,  while  the  Fuegians  had 
bark  canoes,  and  those  by  no  means  of  the  lowest  quality.  It  is 
worthy  of  note  that  the  Peruvians,  though  they  had  pyrites,  and 
broke  the  nodules  to  polish  the  faces  into  mirrors,  do  not  seem 
to  have  used  it  to  strike  fire  with.  If  they  did  not,  their  civi- 
lization stood  in  this  matter  below  that  of  the  much-despised 
Fuegians.  The  ancient  Mexicans  also  made  mirrors  of  polished 
pyrites,  and  perhaps  they  may  have  used  it  to  strike  fire  ; x  but 
the  wooden  friction-apparatus  was  certainly  common  among 

1  It  seems  by  a  passage  in  Boturini  (p.  18),  that  he  had  some  reason  to  think  they 


FIRE,  COOKING,  AND  VESSELS.  201 

them.  Even  the  fire-drills  of  Peru  and  Mexico  were  of  the 
simplest  kind,  twirled  between  the  hands  without  any  contri- 
vance to  lessen  the  labour,  so  that  even  the  rude  Esquimaux 
and  Indian  tribes  have  reached,  in  this  respect,  a  higher  stage 
of  art  than  these  comparatively  civilized  peoples. 

To  turn  now  from  the  art  of  making  fire  to  one  of  its  principal 
uses  to  mankind.  The  art  of  Cooking  is  as  universal  as  Fire 
itself  among  the  human  race ;  but  there  are  found,  even  among 
savages,  several  different  processes  that  come  under  the  general 
term,  and  a  view  of  the  distribution  of  these  processes  over  the 
world  may  throw  some  light  on  the  early  development  of  Human 
Culture. 

Boasting  or  broiling  by  direct  exposure  to  the  fire  seems  the 
one  method  universally  known  to  mankind,  but  the  use  of  some 
kind  of  oven  is  also  very  general.  The  Andaman  Islanders  keep 
fire  continually  smouldering  in  hollow  trees,  so  that  they  have 
only  to  clear  away  the  ashes  at  any  time  to  cook  their  little  pigs 
and  fish.1  In  Africa  the  natives  take  possession  of  a  great  ant- 
hill, destroy  the  ants,  and  clear  out  the  inside,  leaving  only  the 
clay  walls  standing,  which  they  make  red  hot  with  a  fire,  so  as 
to  bake  joints  of  rhinoceros  within.3  But  these  are  unusual  ex- 
pedients, and  a  much  commoner  form  of  savage  oven  is  a  mere 
pit  in  the  ground.  In  the  most  elaborate  kind  of  this  cooking 
in  underground  ovens,  hot  stones  are  put  in  with  the  food,  as  in 
the  familiar  South- Sea  Island  practice,  which  is  too  well  known 
to  need  description.  The  Malagasy  plan  seems  to  be  the  same;3 
but  the  Polynesians  and  their  connexions  have  by  no  means  a 
monopoly  of  the  art,  which  is  practised  with  little  or  no  dif- 
ference in  other  parts  of  the  world.  In  the  Morea,  the  traveller's 
dinner  is  often  prepared  by  making  a  fire  in  a  hole  in  the  ground, 
in  which  a  kid  or  lamb  is  afterwards  placed,  and  covered  in  by  a 
stone  made  hot  for  the  purpose.  The  Canary  Islanders  buried 
meat  in  a  hole  in  the  ground,  and  lighted  a  fire  over  it;  *  and 

used  flint  to  strike  fire  with,  and  if  so,  as  they  had  no  iron,  they  probably  used 
pvrites.  iMouat,p.308 

-  Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  iii.  p.  222.     Moffat,  Missionary  Labours,  etc.,  in  S.  Al 
London,  1842,  p.  521. 

3  Ellis,  Madagascar,  vol.  i.  p.  72. 

4  Barker- Webb  and  Berthelot,  vol.  i.  part  L  p.  134. 


2G2  FIRE,  •  COOKING,  AXD  VESSELS. 

a  similar  practice  is  still  sometimes  found  in  the  island  of 
Sardinia,1  while  among  the  Beduins,  and  in  places  in  North  and 
South  America,  the  process  comes  even  closer  to  that  used  in 
the  South  Seas.3  It  is  this  wide  diffusion  of  the  art  which 
makes  it  somewhat  doubtful  whether  Klemm  is  right  in  con- 
sidering its  occurrence  in  Australia  as  one  of  the  results  of 
intercourse  with  more  civilized  islands.  The  natives  cook  in 
underground  ovens  on  very  distant  parts  of  the  coast;  sometimes 
hot  stones  are  used,  and  sometimes  not.3 

"When  meat  or  vegetables  are  kept  for  many  hours  on  a 
grating  above  a  slow  fire,  the  combination  of  roasting  and 
smoking  brings  the  food  into  a  state  in  which  it  will  keep  for  a 
long  while,  even  in  the  tropics.  Jean  de  Lery,  in  the  account 
of  his  adventures  among  the  Indians  of  Brazil,  about  1557,  de- 
scribes the  wooden  grating  set  up  on  four  forked  posts,  "which 
in  their  language  they  call  a  boucan ;  "  on  this  they  cooked  food 
with  a  slow  tire  underneath,  and  as  they  did  not  salt  their  meat, 
this  process  served  them  as  a  means  of  keeping  their  game  and 
fish.4  To  the  word  boucan  belongs  the  term  boucanier,  bucanccr, 
given  to  the  French  hunters  of  St.  Domingo,  from  their  pre- 
paring the  flesh  of  the  wild  oxen  and  boars  in  this  way,  and 
applied  less  appropriately  to  the  rovers  of  the  Spanish  Main. 
The  process  has  been  found  elsewhere  in  South  America,5  and 
perhaps  as  far  North  as  Florida.6  The  Haitian  name  for  a 
framework  of  sticks  set  upon  posts,  barbacoa,  was  adopted  into 
Spanish  and  English ;  for  instance,  the  Peruvian  air-bridges, 
made  over  difficult  ground  by  setting  up  on  piles  a  wattled 
flooring  covered  with  earth,  are  called  barbacoas  ;  7  and  Dampier 

1  Maury,  'La  Terre  &  l^omine  ; '  Paris,  1857,  p.  572. 

1  Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  ii.  p.  26 ;  vol.  iv.  p.  120.  FitzRoy,  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.,  1861, 
p.  4. 

1  Cook,  1st  Voy.  H.,  vol.  iiL  p.  233.  Lang,  p.  347.  Grey,  Journals,  vol.  i. 
p.  176  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  274.  Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  i.  p.  307.  Eyre,  vol.  ii.  p.  289. 

4  Lery,  Hist,  d'un  Voy.,  etc.,  1600,  p.  153.  Southey,  Brazil,  vol.  L  p.  216  ; 
vol.  iii.  pp.  337,  361.  The  word  loucan  seems  connected  with  that  now  commonly 
used  in  Brazil.  "Mocatm,  donde  fisemos  moquem,  assar  na  labareda."  Dias  Die. 
da  Lingua  Tupy. 

*  Wallace,  p.  220.     Humboldt  and  Bonpland,  vol.   ii.  p.   556.     Purchas,  vol.  v. 
p.  899. 

•  Hakluyt,  vol  iii.  p.  307.  ?  Tschudi,  'Peru,'  vol.  ii.  p.  202. 


FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS.  2G3 

speaks  of  having  "  a  Barbacue  of  split  Bambooes  to  sleep  on."  * 
The  American  mode  of  roasting  on  such  a  framework  is  the 
origin  of  our  term  to  barbecue,  though  its  meaning  has  changed 
to  that  of  roasting  an  animal  whole.  The  art  of  bucaning  or 
barbecuing,  as  practised  by  the  Americans,  is  found  in  Africa,  in 
Kamchatka,  the  Eastern  Archipelago,  and  the  Pelew  Islands ; 2 
and  it  merges  into  the  very  common  process  of  smoking  meat  to 
make  it  keep. 

The  mere  inspection  of  these  simple  and  wide- spread  varieties 
of  cooking  gives  the  ethnographer  very  little  evidence  of  the  way 
in  which  they  have  been  invented  and  spread  over  the  world.  But 
from  the  more  complex  art  of  Boiling  there  is  something  to  be 
learnt.  There  are  races  of  mankind,  such  as  the  Fuegians  and 
the  Bushmen,  who  do  not  seem  to  have  known  how  to  boil  food 
when  they  first  came  into  the  view  of  Europe,  while  the  higher 
peoples  of  the  world,  and  a  great  proportion  of  the  lower  ones, 
have  had,  so  long  as  we  know  anything  of  them,  vessels  of  pottery 
or  metal  which  they  put  liquids  into,  and  set  over  the  fire  to  boil. 
Between  these  two  conditions,  however,  there  lies  a  process  which 
has  been  superseded  by  the  higher  method  within  modern  times 
over  a  large  fraction  of  the  earth's  surface,  and  which  there  is 
some  reason  to  believe  once  extended  much  further.  It  is  even 
likely  that  the  art  of  Boiling,  as  commonly  known  to  us,  may 
have  been  developed  through  this  intermediate  process,  which  I 
propose  to  call  Stone-Boiling. 

There  is  a  North  American  tribe  who  received  from  their 
neighbours  the  Ojibwas,  the  name  of  Assinaboins,  or  "  Stone- 
Boilers,"  from  their  mode  of  boiling  their  meat,  of  which  Catlin 
gives  a  particular  account.  They  dig  a  hole  in  the  ground,  take 
a  piece  of  the  animal's  raw  hide,  and  press  it  down  with  their 
hands  close  to  the  sides  of  the  hole,  which  thus  becomes  a  sort 
of  pot  or  basin.  This  they  fill  with  water,  and  they  make  a 
number  of  stones  red-hot  in  a  fire  close  by.  The  meat  is  put 
into  the  water,  and  the  stones  dropped  in  till  the  meat  is  boiled. 
Catlin  describes  the  process  as  awkward  and  tedious,  and  says 

1  Dampier,  vol  ii.  part  i.  p.  90. 

2  Burton,    'Central  Africa,' vol.  ii.  p.  282.     Kracheninnikow,  p.    46.     Dampier, 
vol.  iii.  part  ii.  p.  24.     Keate,  p.  203.     See  Earl,  'Papuans,'  p.  1G5. 


264  FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 

that  since  the  Assinaboins  had  learnt  from  the  Mandans  to 
pottery,  and  had  heen  supplied  with  vessels  by  the  traders,  they 
had  entirely  done  away  the  custom,  "  excepting  at  public 
festivals ;  where  they  seem,  like  all  others  of  the  human  family, 
to  take  pleasure  in  cherishing  and  perpetuating  their  ancient 
customs." l  Elsewhere  among  the  Sioux  or  Dacotas,  to 
whom  the  Assinaboins  belong,  the  tradition  has  been  preserved 
that  their  fathers  used  to  cook  the  game  in  its  own  skin,  which 
they  set  up  on  four  sticks  planted  in  the  ground,  and  put  water, 
meat,  and  hot  stones  into  it.2  The  Sioux  had  the  art  of  stone- 
boiling  in  common  with  the  mass  of  the  northern  tribes.  Father 
Charlevoix,  writing  above  a  century  ago,  speaks  of  the  Indians  of 
the  North  as  using  wooden  kettles  and  boiling  the  water  in  them 
by  throwing  in  red-hot  stones,  but  even  then  iron  pots  were 
superseding  both  these  vessels  and  the  pottery  of  other  tribes.3 
To  specify  more  particularly,  the  Micmacs  and  Souriquois,4  the 
Blackfeet  and  the  Crees,5  are  known  to  have  been  stone-boilers ; 
the  Shoshonees  or  Snake  Indians,  like  the  far  more  northerly 
tribes  of  Slaves,  Dog- Bibs,  etc.,6  still  make,  or  lately  made, 
their  pots  of  roots  plaited  or  rather  twined  so  closely  that  they 
will  hold  water,  boiling  their  food  in  them  with  hot  stones  ;7 
while  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  Indians  used  similar 
baskets  to  boil  salmon,  acorn  porridge,  and  other  food  in,8  or 
wooden  vessels  such  as  Captain  Cook  found  at  Nootka  Sound, 
and  La  Perouse  at  Port  Francais.9  Lastly,  Sir  Edward  Belcher 
met  with  the  practice  of  stone-boiling  in  1826  among  the  Esqui- 
maux of  Icy  Cape.10 

So  instantly  is  the  art  of  stone-boiling  supplanted  by  the 
kettles  of  the  white  trader,  that,  unless  perhaps  in  the  north- 
west, it  might  be  hard  to  find  it  in  existence  now.  But  the 
state  of  things  in  North  America,  as  known  to  us  in  earlier 
times,  is  somewhat  as  follows.  The  Mexicans,  and  the  races 
between  them  and  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  were  potters  at  the 

1  CatHn,  vol.  i.  p.  54.  *  Schoolcraft,  part  ii.  p.  176. 

*  Charlevoix,  vol  vi.  p.  47.  4  Schoolcraft,  part  i.  p.  81. 

6  Harmon,  p.  323.  «  Mackenzie,  p.  37,  and  see  p.  207. 

7  Schoolcraft,  part  i.  p.  211.  &  Schoolcraft,  part  iii.  pp.  107,  146. 
9  Cook,  Third  Voy.,  vol.  ii.  p.  321.     Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  26,  69. 

M  Belcher,  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.,  vol.  I  1861,  p.  133. 


FIRE,   COOKING,   AND   VESSELS.  265 

time  of  the  Spanish  discovery,  and  the  art  extended  northward 
over  an  immense  district,  lying  mostly  hetween  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  the  Atlantic,  and  stretching  up  into  Canada. 
In  Eastern  North  America  the  first  European  discoverers  found 
the  art  of  earthenware-making  in  full  operation,  and  forming  a 
regular  part  of  the  women's  work,  and  on  this  side  of  the  con- 
tinent, as  high  at  least  as  New  England,  the  site  of  an  Indian 
village  may  be  traced,  like  so  many  of  the  ancient  settlements 
in  the  Old  World,  by  innumerable  fragments  of  pottery.  But 
the  Stone-Boilers  extended  far  south  on  the  Pacific  side,  and  also 
occupied  what  may  be  roughly  called  the  northern  half  of  North 
America. 

In  that  north-eastern  corner  of  Asia  which  is  of  such  extreme 
interest  to  the  ethnographer,  as  preserving  the  lower  human 
culture  so  near  the  high  Asiatic  civilization,  and  yet  so  little 
influenced  by  it,  the  art  of  Stone-boiling  was  found  in  full  force. 
The  Kamchadals,  like  some  American  tribes,  used  hollowed 
wooden  troughs  for  the  purpose,  and  long  resisted  the  use  of 
the  iron  cooking  pots  of  the  Russians,  considering  that  the  food 
only  kept  its  flavour  properly  when  dressed  in  the  old-fashioned 
way.1 

Thus  the  existence  of  a  great  district  of  Stone-Boilers  in 
Northern  Asia  and  America  is  made  out  by  direct  evidence,  but 
beside  this  we  know  of  the  practice  in  a  southern  district  of  the 
world. 

In  Australia,  Mr.  T.  Baines  mentions  native  cooking-places 
seen  on  the  Victoria  River  in  1855-6,  small  holes  in  the  ground, 
where  fish,  water- tortoise,  and,  in  one  instance,  a  small  alligator, 
had  been  made  to  boil  by  the  immersion  of  heated  stones  in  the 
water.2  Thus  the  Australians,  at  least  in  modern  times,  must 
be  counted  as  stone-boilers.  Concerning  the  New  Zealanders, 
Captain  Cook  made  a  remark  that  "  having  no  vessel  in  which 
water  can  be  boiled,  their  cooking  consists  wholly  of  baking  and 
roasting.3  But  the  inference  that  people  who  have  no  vessel 
that  will  stand  the  fire  must  therefore  be  unable  to  boil  food  is 

1  Kracheninnikow,  p.  30.     Erman,  Reise,  vol.  iii.  p.  423. 

2  Bain- s,  in  Anthrop.  Rev.,  July,  1866,  p.  civ. 

*  Cook,  First  Voy.  H.,  vol.  iii.  p.  55  ;  also  Third  Toy.,  voL  L  p.  158. 


2G6      -  FIRE,  COOKING,   AND  VESSELS. 

not  a  sound  one.  There  is  evidence  that  the  Maoris  knew  the 
art  of  stone-boiling,  though  they  used  it  but  little.  It  is  found 
among  them  under  circumstances  which  give  no  ground  for 
supposing  that  it  was  introduced  after  Captain  Cook's  visit. 
The  curious  dried  human  heads  of  New  Zealand,  which  excel  any 
mummies  that  have  ever  been  made  in  the  preservation  of  the 
features  of  the  dead,  were  first  brought  over  to  England  by 
Cook's  party.  From  a  careful  description  of  the  process  of 
preparing  them,  made  since,  it  appears  that  one  thing  was  to 
parboil  them  (as  we  used  to  do  traitors'  heads  for  Temple  Bar), 
and  this  was  contrived  by  throwing  them  "  into  boiling  water, 
into  which  red-hot  stones  are  continually  cast,  to  keep  up  the 
heat."1  A  remark  made  by  another  writer  places  the  existence 
of  stone-boiling  as  a  native  New  Zealand  art  beyond  question. 
"  The  New  Zealauders,  although  destitute  of  vessels  in  which  to 
boil  water,  had  an  ingenious  way  of  heating  water  to  the  boiling 
point,  for  the  purpose  of  making  shell-fish  open.  This  was  done 
by  putting  red-hot  stones  into  wooden  vessels  full  of  water."2 
AVhen,  therefore,  we  find  them  boiling  and  eating  the  berries  of 
the  Launis  tawa,  which  are  harmless  when  boiled,  but  poisonous 
in  their  raw  state,  it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  this  to  have 
been  found  out  since  Captain  Cook's  time,  as  the  boiling  was 
probably  done  before  with  hot  stones.3 

In  several  other  Polynesian  islands,  it  appears  from  Cook's 
journals  that  stone-boiling  was  in  ordinary  use  in  cookery.  The 
making  of  a  native  pudding  in  Tahiti  is  thus  described.  Bread- 
fruit, ripe  plantains,  taro,  and  palm  or  pandanus  nuts,  were 
rasped,  scraped,  or  beaten  up  fine,  and  baked  separately.  A 
quantity  of  juice,  expressed  from  cocoa-nut  kernels,  was  put  into 
a  large  tray  or  wooden  vessel.  The  other  articles,  hot  from  the 
oven,  were  deposited  in  this  vessel,  and  a  few  hot  stones  were 
also  put  in  to  make  the  contents  simmer.  Few  puddings  in 
England,  he  says,  equal  these.  In  the  island  of  Anamooka,  they 
brought  him  a  mess  of  fish,  soup,  and  yams  stewed  in  cocoa-nut 
liquor,  "  probably  in  a  wooden  vessel,  with  hot  stones."  The 
practice  seems  to  have  existed  in  the  Marquesas,  and  in  Huaheine 

1  Yate,  'New  Zealand,'  p.  132. 

1  Thomson,  'New  Zealand,"  voL  i.  p.  160.  *  Yate,  p.  43. 


FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS.  267 

he  describes  the  preparation  of  a  dish  of  poi  in  a  wooden  trough 
•with  hot  stones.1  What  the  Polynesian  notion  of  a  pudding  is, 
as  to  size,  may  be  gathered  from  the  account  of  two  missionaries 
who  arrived  at  the  island  of  Rurutu,  and  were  received  by  a 
native  who  paddled  out  to  meet  them  through  a  rough  sea,  in  a 
wooden  poi-dish,  seven  feet  long  and  two  and  a  half  wide.2 

I  fear  that  the  Tahitian  recipe  for  making  poi  must  spoil  the 
good  old  story  of  Captain  Wallis's  tea-urn.  A  native  who  was 
breakfasting  on  board  the  Dolphin  saw  the  tea-pot  filled  from 
the  urn,  and  presently  turned  the  cock  again  and  put  his  hand 
underneath,  with  such  effects  as  may  be  imagined.  Captain 
"Wallis,  knowing  that  the  natives  had  no  earthen  vessels,  and 
that  boiling  in  a  pot  over  a  fire  was  a  novelty  to  them,  and 
putting  all  these  things  together  in  telling  the  story,  interpreted 
the  howls  of  the  scalded  native  as  he  danced  about  the  cabin, 
and  the  astonishment  of  the  rest  of  the  visitors,  as  proving  that 
the  Tahitians  "  having  no  vessel  in  which  water  could  be  sub- 
jected to  the  action  of  fire,  ....  had  no  more  idea  that  it  could 
be  made  hot,  than  that  it  could  be  made  solid."3  No  doubt  the 
natives  were  surprised  at  hot  water  coming  out  of  so  unlikely  a 
place,  but  the  world  seems  to  have  accepted  both  the  story  and 
the  inference  without  stopping  to  consider  that  hot  water  could 
not  be  much  of  a  novelty  among  people  to  whom  boiled  pudding 
was  an  article  of  daily  food.  Captain  "VYallis's  story  (as  is  so 
commonly  the  case  with  accounts  of  savages)  may  be  matched 
elsewhere.  "  And  we  went  now,"  says  Kotzebue,  in  the  account 
of  his  visit  to  the  Badack  islands,  "to  Rarick's  dwelling,  where 
the  kettle  had  already  been  set  on  the  fire,  and  the  natives  were 
assembled  round  it,  looking  at  the  boiling  water,  which  seemed 
to  them  alive."  Yet  on  another  island  of  the  same  chain  it  is 
remarked  that  the  mogomuk  is  made  by  drying  the  root  of  a 
plant,  and  pressing  the  meal  into  lumps;  when  it  is  to  be  eaten, 
some  of  this  is  broken  off,  stirred  with  water  in  a  cocoa-nut 
shell,  and  boiled  till  it  swells  up  into  a  thick  porridge  ("  und 
kocht  ihn,  bis  er  zu  einem  dicken  Brei  aufquillt,")  etc.4 

1  Cook,  Third  Toy.,  vol.  ii.  p.  49  ;  vol.  i.  p.  233.  Second  Toy.,  vol.  I  p.  310. 
First  Voy.  H.,  vol.  ii.  p.  254.  2  Tyennan  &  Bennet,  vol.  i.  p.  493. 

'  Wallis,  H.,  vol.  L  pp.  246,  264.  *  Kotzebue,  vol.  ii.  pp.  47,  65. 


268  FIRE,   COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 

Though  the  natives  of  the  islands  mentioned,  and  no  doubt 
of  many  others,  were  still  stone-boilers  in  Cook's  time,  pottery 
had  already  made  its  appearance  in  Polynesia,  in  districts  so 
situated  that  the  art  may  reasonably  be  supposed  to  have  tra- 
velled from  island  to  island  from  the  Eastern  Archipelago,  where 
perhaps  the  Malays  received  it  from  Asia.  By  Cook  and  later 
explorers  earthen  vessels  were  found  in  the  Pelew,  Fiji,  and 
Tonga  groups,  and  in  New  Caledonia.1  By  this  time  it  is  likely 
that  these  and  European  vessels  may  have  put  an  end  to  stone- 
boiling  in  Polynesia,  so  that  its  displacement  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  pottery  and  metal  will  have  taken  place  by  the  same 
combination  of  the  influence  of  neighbouring  tribes  and  of 
Europeans  which  have  produced  a  similar  effect  in  North 
America. 

There  is  European  evidence  of  the  art  of  stone-boiling.  The 
Finns  have  kept  up  into  modern  times  a  relic  of  the  practice. 
LinnaBus,  on  his  famous  Lapland  Tour,  in  1732,  recorded  the 
fact  that  in  East  Bothland  "  The  Finnish  liquor  called  Lura  is 
prepared  like  other  beer,  except  not  being  boiled,  instead  of 
which  red-hot  stones  are  thrown  into  it."2  Moreover,  the 
quantities  of  stones,  evidently  calcined,  which  are  found  buried 
in  our  own  country,  sometimes  in  the  sites  of  ancient  dwellings, 
give  great  probability  to  the  inference  which  has  been  drawn 
from  them,  that  they  were  used  in  cooking.  It  is  true  that 
their  use  may  have  been  for  baking  in  underground  ovens,  a 
practice  found  among  races  who  are  Stone-boilers,  and  others 
who  are  not.  But  it  is  actually  on  record  that  the  wild  Irish,  of 
about  1600,  used  to  warm  their  milk  for  drinking  with  a  stone 
first  cast  into  the  fire.3 

In  Asia  4  I  have  met  with  no  positive  evidence  of  cookery  by 

1  Cook,  Second  Voy.,  vol.  i..p.  214  ;  vol.  ii.  p.  105.     Third  Voy.,  vol.  i.  p.  375. 
Klemm,  C.  Q.,  vol.  iv.  p.  272.     Williams,    'Fiji,'  vol.  i.    p.   6'J.     Turner,  p.  424. 
Mariner,  vol.  ii.  p.  272.     Keate,  p.  336. 

2  Linnaeus,  Tour,  vol.  ii.  p.  231.     Such  beer,  called  Steinbir,  is  made  in  Carinthia, 
by  throwing  hot  stones  into  the  vat.     See  W.  0.  Stanley,    '  Memoirs  on  Ancient 
Dwellings  in  Holyhead,'  p.  19.     [Note  to  3rd  Edition.] 

3  J.  Evans,  in  Archaeologia,  vol.  xli. 

4  Dr.  Hooker  found  baths  of  hollowed  trees  at  Bhomsong,  heated  with  hot  stones, 
'Himalayan  Journals,'  vol.  i.  p.  305.     Compare  a  similar  process  in  N.  W.  America, 
Tr.  Eth.  Soc.,  voL  iv.  p.  290. 


FIRE,   COOKING,  AND   VESSELS.  209 

stone-boiling  beyond  Kamchatka,  but  some  extremely  rude 
boiling-vessels  have  been  observed  among  Siberian  tribes,  the 
use  of  which  is  either  to  be  explained  by  the  absence  or  scarcity 
of  earthenware  or  metal  pots,  or  by  the  keeping  up  of  old  habits 
belonging  to  a  time  of  such  absence  or  scarcity.  The  Dutch 
envoy,  Ysbrants  Ides,  remarks  of  the  Ostyaks,  "  I  have  also 
seen  a  copper  kettle  among  them,  and  some  other  kettles  of 
bark  sewed  together,  in  which  they  can  boil  food  over  the  hot 
coals,  but  not  in  the  flame  of  the  fire."1  Now  just  such  bark- 
kettles  as  these  have  been  seen  in  use  among  a  North  American 
tribe  on  the  Unijah,  or  Peace  River,  near  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
They  were  stone-boilers,  using  for  this  purpose  the  regular 
u~  at  ape  pots,  or  rather  baskets,  of  woven  roots  of  spruce  fir, 
but  they  had  also  kettles,  "  made  of  spruce-bark,  which  they 
hang  over  the  fire,  but  at  such  a  distance  as  to  receive  the  heat 
without  being  within  reach  of  the  blaze  ;  a  veiy  tedious  opera- 
tion." ;  In  Siberia,  among  the  Ostyaks,  the  practice  has  been 
observed  of  using  the  paunch  of  the  slaughtered  beast  as  a 
vessel  to  cook  the  blood  in  over  the  fire,3  and  the  same  thing 
has  been  noticed  among  the  Reindeer  Koriaks.4  Thus  the 
story  told  by  Herodotus  of  the  Scythians,  who,  when  they  had 
not  a  suitable  cauldron,  used  to  boil  the  flesh  of  the  sacrificed 
beast  in  its  own  paunch,5  seems  to  give  a  glimpse  of  a  state  of 
things  in  the  centre  of  Asia,  resembling  that  which  has  con- 
tinued into  modern  times  in  the  remote  North-East.  It  is  thus 
not  unlikely  that  the  use  of  stone-boiling,  to  meet  the  want 
of  suitable  vessels  for  direct  boiling  over  the  fire,  may  once 
have  had  a  range  in  Asia  far  beyond  the  Kamchatkan 
promontory.6 

It  may  be  that  the  more  convenient  boiling  in  vessels  set 
over  the  fire  was  generally  preceded  in  the  world  by  the  clumsier 

1  E.  Ysbrants  Ides,  '  Reize  naar  China ;'  Amsterdam,  1710,  p.  27. 
"  Mackenzie,  p.  207. 

3  Erman  (E.  Tr.),  vol.  ii.  pp.  456,  467. 

4  Kracheninnikow,  p.  142. 

5  Herod.,  iv.  61. 

6  The  frequent  use  of  wicker  baskets  for  holding  liquids,   in  Africa,  may  have  a 
bearing  on  the  history  of  stone-boiling.     Sec  mention  of  hot  stones  for  melting  or 
boiling  fat,  in  Bleek,  'Reynard  in  Africa,'  pp.  8-10. 


270  FIRE,  COOKING,  AND  VESSELS. 

stone-boiling,  of  which  the  history,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to 
make  it  out  from  evidence  within  my  reach,  has  thus  been 
sketched.  Of  vessels  used  for  the  higher  kind  of  boiling,  as 
commonly  known  to  us,  something  may  now  be  said. 

It  is  not  absolutely  necessary  that  vessels  of  earthenware, 
metal,  etc.,  should  be  used  for  this  purpose.  Potstone,  lapis 
ollaris,  has  been  used  by  the  Esquimaux,  and  by  various  Old 
World  peoples,  to  make  vessels  which  will  stand  the  fire.1  The 
Asiatic  paunch-kettles  have  just  been  mentioned,  and  kettles  of 
skins  have  been  described  among  the  Esquimaux,2  and  even  among 
the  wild  Irish 3  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  Hebrides,  of  whose 
way  of  life  George  Buchanan  gives  the  following  curious 
account: — "In  food,  clothing,  and  all  domestic  matters,  they 
use  the  ancient  parsimony.  Their  meat  is  supplied  by  hunting 
and  fishing.  The  fljsh  they  boil  with  water  in  the  paunch  or 
hide  of  the  slaughtered  beast ;  out  hunting  they  sometimes  eat 
it  raw,  when  the  blood  has  been  pressed  out.  For  drink  they 
have  the  broth  of  the  meat.  Whey  that  has  been  kept  for 
years,  they  also  drink  greedily  at  their  feasts.  This  kind  of 
liquor  they  call  bland."  4  Beside  these  animal  materials,  parts 
of  several  plants  will  answer  the  purpose,  as  the  bark  used  for 
kettles  in  Asia  and  America,  the  spathes  of  palms,  in  which  food 
is  often  boiled  in  South  America,5  the  split  bamboos  in  which 
the  Dayaks,  the  Sumatrans,  and  the  Stiens  of  Cambodia,  boil 
their  rice,  and  cocoa-nut  shells,  as  just  mentioned  in  the  Radack 
group ;  Captain  Cook  saw  a  cocoa-nut  shell  used  in  Tahiti,  to 
dry  up  the  blood  of  a  native  dog  in,  over  the  fire.6  These  facts 
should  be  borne  in  mind  in  considering  the  following  theory  of 
the  Origin  of  the  Art  of  Pottery. 

It  was,  I  believe,  Goguet  who  first  propounded,  in  the  last 
century,  the  notion  that  the  way  in  which  pottery  came  to  be 

1  Cranz,  p.  73  ;  Linnaeus,  vol.  L  p.  356  ;  Klemm,  C.  GK,  voL  ii.  p.  266.  Mem. 
Anthrop.  Soc.  ToL  i.  1863-4,  pp.  297-8. 

*  Martin  Frobisher,  in  '  Hakluyt,'  vol.  iii.  pp.  66,  95.  3  Evans,  1.  c. 

4  'Rerum  Scoticarum  Historia,  auctore  Georgio  Buchanano  Scoto  ;'  (ad  ex.) 
Edinburgh,  1528,  p.  7. 

•  Spix  and  Martius,  vol.  ii.  p.  688.     Wallace,  p.  508. 

'  St.  John,  vol.  i.  p.  137.  Marsden,  p.  60.  Mouhot,  vol.  ii.  p.  245.  Cook, 
Third  Toy.,  vol.  ii  p.  35.  See  Coleman,  p.  318  ;  Mariner,  vol.  ii.  p.  272. 


FIRE,   COOKING,  AXD  VESSELS.  271 

made,  was  that  people  daubed  such  combustible  vessels  as  these 
with  clay,  to  protect  them  from  the  fire,  till  they  found  that  the 
clay  alone  would  answer  the  purpose,  and  thus  the  art  of  pottery 
came  into  the  world.  The  idea  was  not  a  mere  effort  of  his 
imagination,  for  he  had  met  with  a  description  of  the  plastering 
of  wooden  vessels  with  clay  in  the  southern  Hemisphere.  It  is 
related  that  a  certain  Captain  Gonneville  sailed  from  Honfleur 
in  1503,  doubled  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  came  to  the 
Southern  Indies  (apparently  the  east  coast  of  South  America). 
There  he  found  a  gentle  and  joyous  people,  living  by  hunting 
and  fishing,  and  a  little  agriculture,  and  he  speaks  of  cloaks  of 
mats  and  skins,  feather  work,  bows  and  arrows,  beds  of  mats, 
villages  of  thirty  to  eighty  huts  of  stakes  and  wattles,  etc., 
"  and  their  household  utensils  of  wood,  even  their  boiling-pots, 
but  plastered  with  a  kind  of  clay,  a  good  finger  thick,  which 
prevents  the  fire  from  burning  them."1  The  theory  of  the 
origin  of  pottery  which  Goguet  founded  upon  this  remarkable 
account,  is  corroborated  by  a  quantity  of  evidence  which  has 
made  its  appearance  since  his  time. 

The  comparison  of  two  accounts  of  vessels  found,  one  among 
the  Esquimaux,  the  other  among  their  neighbours  the  Unalash- 
kans  (whose  language  contains  proofs  of  intimate  contact  with 
them2),  may  serve  to  give  an  idea  of  the  way  in  which  clay  may 
come  to  supersede  less  convenient  materials,  and  a  gradual 
approach  be  made  towards  the  potter's  art.  When  James  Hall 
was  in  Greenland,  in  1605,  he  found  the  natives  boiling  food 
over  their  lamps,  in  vessels  with  stone  bottoms,  and  sides  of 
whale's  fins.3  In  Unalashka,  Captain  Cook  found  that  some  of 
the  natives  had  got  brass  kettles  from  the  Eussians,  but  those 
who  had  not,  made  their  own  "  of  a  flat  stone,  with  sides  of  clay, 
not  unlike  a  standing  pye."4  He  thought  it  likely  that  they 
had  learnt  to  boil  from  the  Eussians,  but  the  Eussians  could 
hardly  have  taught  them  to  make  such  vessels  as  these,  and  the 
appearance  of  a  kettle  with  a  stone  bottom  (no  doubt  potstone), 

1  Goguet,  vol.  i.  p.  77.  '  Memoires  touchant  I'Etablissement  d'une  Mission 
Chrestienne  dans  le  troisieme  monde,  autrement  appelte  la  Terre  Australe,'  etc. ; 
Paris,  1663,  pp.  10-16. 

a  Buschmann,  Azt.  Spr.,  p.  702.  *  Purchas,  vol.  iii.  p.  817. 

*  Cook,  Third  Voy.,  vol.  ii.  p.  510. 


272  FIRE,   COOKING,   AND  VESSELS. 

and  sides  of  another  material,  at  the  two  opposite  sides  of 
America,  gives  ground  for  supposing  it  to  have  been  in  common 
use  in  high  latitudes. 

From  the  examination  of  an  earthen  vessel  from  the  Fiji 
Islands,  Dr.  D.  S.  Price  considers  that  it  was  very  likely  made 
by  moulding  clay  on  the  outside  of  the  shell  or  rind  of  some 
fruit.  The  vessel  in  question  is  made  watertight  after  the  South 
American  manner  by  a  varnish  of  resin.  The  evident  and  fre- 
quent adoption  of  gourd- shapes  in  the  earthenware  of  distant 
parts  of  the  world  does  not  prove  much,  but  as  far  as  it  goes  it 
tells  in  favour  of  the  opinion  that  such  gourd-like  vessels  may 
be  the  successors  of  real  gourds,  made  into  pottery  by  a  plaster- 
ing of  clay.  Some  details  given  in  1841  by  Squier  and  Davis, 
in  their  account  of  the  monuments  in  the  Mississippi  Valley, 
are  much  more  to  the  purpose.  "  In  some  of  the  Southern 
States,  it  is  said,  the  kilns,  in  which  the  ancient  pottery  was 
baked,  are  now  occasionally  to  be  met  with.  Some  are  repre- 
sented still  to  contain  the  ware,  partially  burned,  and  retaining 
the  rinds  of  the  gourds,  etc.,  over  which  they  were  modelled,  and 
which  had  not  been  entirely  removed  by  the  fire."  "  Among 
the  Indians  along  the  Gulf,  a  greater  degree  of  skill  was  displayed 
than  with  those  on  the  upper  waters  of  the  Mississippi  and  on 
the  lakes.  Their  vessels  were  generally  larger  and  more  sym- 
metrical, and  of  a  superior  finish.  They  moulded  them  over 
gourds  and  other  models  and  baked  them  in  ovens.  In  the  con- 
struction of  those  of  large  size,  it  was  customary  to  model  them 
in  baskets  of  willow  or  splints,  which,  at  the  proper  period,  were 
burned  off,  leaving  the  vessel  perfect  in  form,  and  retaining  the 
somewhat  ornamental  markings  of  their  moulds.  Some  of  those 
found  on  the  Ohio  seem  to  have  been  modelled  in  bags  or  net- 
tings of  coarse  thread  or  twisted  bark.  These  practices  are  still 
retained  by  some  of  the  remote  western  tribes.  Of  this  descrip- 
tion of  pottery  many  specimens  are  found  with  the  recent 
deposits  in  the  mounds."1  Prince  Maximilian  of  Wied  makes 
the  following  remark  on  some  earthen  vessels  found  in  Indian 

1  Squier  &  Davis,  pp.  195,  187.  See  the  account  in  J.  D.  Hunter,  'Memoirs  of 
Captivity  among  the  Indians,'  London,  1623,  p.  239  ;  also  Rau,  'Indian  Pottery,'  in 
Smithsonian  Report,  1866. 


FIRE,   COOKING,   AND   VESSELS.  273 

mounds  near  Harmony,  on  the  "Wabash  river  : — "  They  were 
made  of  a  sort  of  grey  clay,  marked  outside  with  rings,  and 
seem  to  have  been  moulded  in  a  cloth  or  basket,  being  marked 
with  impressions  or  figures  of  this  kind."  l 

It  has  been  thought,  too,  that  the  early  pottery  of  Europe 
r  -talus  in  its  ornamentation  traces  of  having  once  passed 
through  a  stage  in  which  the  clay  was  surrounded  by  basket- 
work  or  netting,  either  as  a  backing  to  support  the  finished 
vessel,  or  as  a  mould  to  form  it  in.  Dr.  Klemm  advanced  this 
view  twenty  years  ago.  "  The  imitation  (of  natural  vessels)  in 
clay  presupposes  numerous  trials.  In  the  Friendly  Islands,  we 
find  vessels  which  are  still  in  an  early  stage  ;  they  are  made  of 
clay,  slightly  burnt,  and  enclosed  in  plaited  work ;  so  also  the 
oldest  German  vessels  seem  to  have  been,  for  we  observe  on 
those  which  remain  an  ornamentation  in  which  plaiting  is  imi- 
tated by  incised  lines.  What  was  no  longer  wanted  as  a 
necessity  was  kept  up  as  an  ornament."  2 

Dr.  Daniel  Wilson  made  a  similar  remark,  some  years  later, 
on  early  British  urns  which,  he  says,  "  may  have  been  strength- 
ened by  being  surrounded  with  a  platting  of  cords  or  rushes. 
...  It  is  certain  that  very  many  of  the  indented  patterns  on 
British  pottery  have  been  produced  by  the  impress  of  twisted 
cords  on  the  wet  clay, — the  intentional  imitation,  it  may  be,  of 
undesigned  indentations  originally  made  by  the  platted  net-work 
on  rider  urns,"  etc.3  Mr.  G.  J.  French  mentions  experiments 
mail"  by  him  in  support  of  his  views  on  the  derivation  of  the 
interlaced  or  guilloche  ornaments  on  early  Scottish  crosses,  etc., 
from  imitation  of  earlier  structures  of  wicker-work.  He  coated 
baskots  with  clay,  and  found  the  wicker  patterns  came  out  on  all 
the  earthen  vessels  thus  made,  and  he  seems  to  think  that  some 
ancient  urns  still  preserved  were  actually  moulded  in  this  way, 
judging  from  the  lip  being  marked  as  if  the  wicker-work  had 
been  turned  in  over  the  clay  coating  inside.4 

Taken  all  together,  the  evidence  of  so  many  imperfect  and 

1  Tr.  Max.  Yovage,  vol.  i.  p.  192.     Klemm,  0.  G.,  vol.  ii.  p.  63. 

2  Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  i.  p.  188. 

8  'Wilson,  Archaeology,  etc.,  of  Scotland,  p.  230. 

4  G.  J.  French,  An  Attempt,  etc. ;  Manchester  (printed),  1858. 

T 


274  FIRE,   COOKING,   AND  VESSELS. 

seemingly  transitional  forms  of  pottery  makes  it  probable  that  it 
was  through  such  stages  that  the  art  grew  up  into  the  more  per- 
fect form  in  which  we  usually  find  it,  and  in  which  it  has  come 
to  be  clearly  understood  that  clay,  alone  or  with  some  mixture 
of  sand  or  such  matters  to  prevent  cracking,  is  capable  of  being 
used  without  any  extraneous  support. 

Such  is  the  evidence  by  means  of  which  I  have  attempted  to 
trace  the  progress  of  mankind  in  three  important  arts,  whose 
early  history  lies  for  the  most  part  out  of  the  range  of  direct 
record.  Its  examination  brings  into  view  a  gradual  improve- 
ment in  methods  of  producing  fire ;  the  supplanting  of  a  rude 
means  of  boiling  food  by  a  higher  one ;  and  a  progress  from 
the  vessels  of  gourds,  bark,  or  shell  of  the  lower  races  to  the 
pottery  and  metal  of  the  higher.  On  the  whole,  progress  in 
these  useful  arts  appears  to  be  the  rule,  and  whether  its  steps 
be  slow  or  rapid,  a  step  once  made  does  not  seem  often  ;o  be 
retraced. 


CHAPTER    X. 

SOME    EEMARKABLE    CUSTOMS. 

IT  has  long  been  an  accepted  doctrine  that  among  the  similar 
customs  found  prevailing  in  distant  countries,  there  are  some 
which  are  evidence  of  worth  to  the  ethnologist.  But  in  dealing 
with  these  things  he  has  to  answer,  time  after  time,  a  new  form 
of  the  hard  question  that  stands  in  his  way  in  so  many  depart- 
ments of  his  work.  He  must  have  derived  from  observation  of 
many  cases  a  general  notion  of  what  Man  does  and  does  not  do, 
before  he  can  say  of  any  particular  custom  which  he  finds  in  two 
distant  places,  either  that  it  is  likely  that  a  similar  state  of 
things  may  have  produced  it  more  than  once,  or  that  it  is  un- 
likely— that  it  is  even  so  unlikely  as  to  approach  the  limit  of 
impossibility,  that  such  a  thing  should  have  grown  up  independ- 
ently in  the  two,  or  three,  or  twenty  places  where  he  finds  it. 
In  the  first  case  it  is  worth  little  or  nothing  to  him  as  evidence 
bearing  on  the  early  history  of  mankind,  but  in  the  latter  it  goes 
with  more  or  less  force  to  prove  that  the  people  who  possess  it 
are  allied  by  blood,  or  have  been  in  contact,  or  have  been  in- 
fluenced indirectly  one  from  the  other  or  both  from  a  common 
source,  or  that  some  combination  of  these  things  has  happened ; 
in  a  word,  that  there  has  been  historical  connexion  between 
them. 

I  give  some  selected  cases  of  the  Argument  from  Similar 
Customs,  both  where  it  seems  sound  and  where  it  seems  un- 
sound, before  proceeding  to  the  main  object  of  this  chapter, 
which  is  to  select  and  bring  into  view,  from  the  enormous  mass 
of  raw  material  that  lies  before  the  student,  four  groups  of  world- 
wide customs  which  seem  to  have  their  roots  deep  in  the  early 

history  of  mankind. 

r  v. 


276  SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS. 

It  is  a  remarkable  thing  to  find  in  Africa  the  practice  which 
we  associate  exclusively  with  Siam  and  the  neighbouring  coun- 
tries, of  paying  divine  honours  to  the  pale-coloured,  or  as  it  is 
called,  the  "  white  "  elephant.  A  native  of  Enarea  (in  East 
Africa,  south  of  Abyssinia)  told  Dr.  Krapf  that  white  elephants, 
whose  hide  was  like  the  skin  of  a  leper,  were  found  in  his 
country,  but  such  an  animal  must  not  be  killed,  for  it  is  con- 
sidered an  Adbar  or  protector  of  man  and  has  religious  honours 
paid  to  it,  and  any  one  who  killed  it  would  be  put  to  death.1 
There  may  be  a  historical  connexion  between  the  veneration  of 
the  white  elephant  in  Asia  and  Africa,  but  the  habit  of  man  to 
regard  unusual  animals,  or  plants,  or  stones,  with  superstitious 
feelings  of  reverence  or  horror  is  so  general,  that  no  prudent 
ethnologist  would  base  an  argument  upon  it,  and  still  less  when 
he  finds  that  in  Africa  the  albino  buffalo  shares  the  sanctity  of 
the  elephant. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  custom  prevalent  in  two  districts  com- 
paratively near  these  may  be  quoted  as  an  example  of  sound 
evidence  of  the  kind  in  question.  In  his  account  of  the  Sulu 
Islands,  north-east  of  Borneo,  Mr.  Spenser  St.  John  speaks  of 
a  superstition  in  those  countries,  that  if  gold  or  pearls  are  put 
in  a  packet  by  themselves  they  will  decrease  and  disappear,  but 
if  a  few  grains  of  rice  are  added,  they  will  keep.  Pearls  they  be- 
lieve will  actually  increase  by  this,  and  the  natives  always  put 
grains  of  rice  in  the  packets  both  of  gold  and  precious  stones.2 
Now  Dr.  Livingstone  mentions  the  same  thing  at  the  gold  dig- 
gings of  Manica  in  East  Africa,  south  of  the  Zambesi,  where  the 
natives  "  bring  the  dust  in  quills,  and  even  put  in  a  few  seeds  of 
a  certain  plant  as  a  charm  to  prevent  their  losing  any  of  it  in  the 
way."3  The  custom  was  probably  transmitted  through  the  Ma- 
hometans, who  form  a  known  channel  of  connexion  between  Africa 
and  the  Malay  Islands,  but  its  very  existence  alone  would  almost 
prove  that  there  must  have  been  a  connecting  link  somewhere. 

Intercourse  between  Asia  and  America  in  early  times  is  not 
brought  to  our  knowledge  by  the  direct  historical  information  by 
which,  for  instance,  distant  parts  of  Asia  and  Africa  are  brought 
into  contact;  still  there  is  indirect  evidence  tending  to  prove 

1  Krapf,  p.  67.  8  St.  John,  vol.  ii.  p.  235.  '  Livingstone,  p.  638. 


SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS.  277 

Asiatic  influence  far  in  the  interior  of  North  America,  and  the 
following  may,  perhaps,  be  held  in  some  degree  to  confirm  and 
supplement  it.  Johannes  de  Piano  Carpini,  describing  hi  1246 
the  manners  and  customs  of  the  Tatars,  says  that  one  of  their 
superstitious  traditions  concerns  "  sticking  a  knife  into  the  fire, 
or  hi  any  way  touching  the  fire  with  a  knife,  or  even  taking  meat 
out  of  the  kettle  with  a  knife,  or  cutting  near  the  fire  with  an 
axe ;  for  they  believe  that  so  the  head  of  the  fire  would  be  cut 
off."1  The  prohibition  was  no  doubt  connected  with  the  Asiatic 
fire-worship,  and  it  seems  to  have  long  been  known  in  Europe, 
for  it  stands  among  the  Pythagorean  maxims,  "  nvp  paya-ipa  prj 
a-KaXfvfLv,"  "  not  to  stir  the  fire  with  a  sword,"  or,  as  it  is  given 
elsewhere,  o-tS^pw,  "  with  an  iron." 2  In  the  far  north-east  of 
Asia  it  may  be  found  in  the  remarkable  catalogue  of  ceremonial 
sins  of  the  fire-revering  Kamchadals,  among  whom  "  it  is  a  sin 
to  take  up  a  burning  ember  with  the  knife-point,  and  light  to- 
bacco, but  it  must  be  taken  hold  of  with  the  bare  hands."3  The 
following  statement  is  taken  out  of  a  list  of  superstitions  of  the 
Sioux  Indians  of  North  America.  "  They  must  not  stick  an  awl 
or  needle  into  ...  a  stick  of  wood  on  the  fire.  No  person  must 
chop  on  it  with  an  axe  or  knife,  or  stick  an  awl  into  it.  ... 
Neither  are  they  allowed  to  take  a  coal  from  the  fire  with  a 
knife,  or  any  other  sharp  instrument."4  Against  the  view  that 
these  remarkable  coincidences  prove  historical  connexion  between 
the  races  they  occur  among,  the  counter- argument  will  be  this, 
has  there  generated  itself  again  and  again  in  the  world,  in  con- 
nexion with  the  idea  of  fire  being  a  living  animal,  a  prohibition 
to  wound  the  sacred  creature  ? 

The  first  of  the  four  groups  of  customs,  selected  as  examples 
of  an  argument  taking  a  yet  wider  range,  is  based  upon  the  idea 
that  disease  is  commonly  caused  by  bits  of  wood,  stone,  hair,  or 

1  Vincentius  Beluacensis,  '  Speculum  Historiale,'  1473,  book  xxxii.  c.  vii. 

2  Diog.    Laert.   viii.    1,   17.      Plut.    'De  Educatione  Pueiorum,'  xvii.       "In  the 
Nijegorod  Government  it  is  still  forbidden  to  break  up  the  smouldering  remains  of 
tHe  faggots  in  a  stove  with  a  poker  ;  to  do  so  might  be  to  cause  one's  '  ancestors'  to 
fall  through  into  hell,"  Ralston,  '  Songs  of  the  Russian  People, '  London,  1872,  p.  120. 
[.sote  to  3rd  Edition.] 

3  Gr.  W.  Steller,   '  Beschreibung  von  dem  Lande  Kamtschatka  ;'  Frankfort,  1774, 
274.  4  Schoolcraft,  part  iii.  p.  230. 


273  SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS. 

other  foreign  substances,  having  got  inside  the  body  of  the 
patient.  Accordingly,  the  malady  is  to  be  cured  by  the  medicine- 
man extracting  the  hurtful  things,  usually  by  sucking  the 
affected  part  till  they  come  out.  Mr.  Backhouse  describes  the 
proceedings  of  a  native  doctress  in  South  Africa,  which  will 
serve  as  a  typical  case.  A  man  was  taken  ill  with  a  pain  in  his 
side,  and  a  Fingo  witch  was  sent  for.  As  she  was  quite  naked, 
except  a  rope  round  her  waist,  the  missionary  who  lived  in  the 
place  declined  to  assist  at  the  ceremony  himself,  but  sent  his 
wife.  The  doctress  sucked  at  the  man's  side,  and  produced 
some  grains  of  Indian  corn,  which  she  said  she  had  drawn  from 
inside  him,  and  which  had  caused  the  disease.  The  missionary's 
wife  looked  in  her  mouth,  and  there  was  nothing  there ;  but 
when  she  sucked  again  and  again,  there  came  more  grains  of 
corn.  At  last  a  piece  of  tobacco-leaf  made  its  appearance  with 
the  corn,  and  showed  how  the  trick  was  done.  The  woman 
swallowed  the  tobacco  first  to  produce  nausea,  and  then  a 
quantity  of  Indian  corn,  and  by  the  help  of  the  rope  round  her 
waist,  she  was  able  so  to  control  her  stomach  as  only  to  produce 
a  few  grains  at  a  time.1  In  North  and  South  America,  in 
Borneo,  and  in  Australia,  the  same  cure  is  part  of  the  doctor's 
work,  with  the  difference  only  that  bones,  bits  of  wood,  stones, 
lizards,  fragments  of  knife-blades,  balls  of  hair,  and  other 
miscellaneous  articles  are  produced,  and  that  the  tricks  by  which 
he  keeps  up  the  pretence  of  sucking  them  out  are  perhaps 
seldom  so  clever  as  the  African  one.2  In  Australia  the  business 
is  profitably  worked  by  one  sorcerer  charming  bits  of  quartz 
into  the  victim's  body,  so  that  another  has  to  be  sent  for  to  get 
them  out.3  It  has  been  already  mentioned  that  in  the  North  of 
Ireland  the  wizards  still  extract  elf-bolts,  that  is,  stone  arrow- 
heads, from  the  bodies  of  bewitched  cattle.4  Southey,  who 
knew  a  great  deal  about  savages,  goes  so  far  as  to  say  of  this 
cure  by  sucking  out  extraneous  objects,  as  practised  by  the 
native  sorcerers  of  Brazil,  that  "  their  mode  of  quackery  was 

1  Backhouse,  'Africa,' p.  284.     Andersson,  p.  329. 

3  Long's  Exp  ,  voL  L  p.  261.     Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  ii.  pp.   169,  335.     St.  John, 
vol.  i.  pp.  62,  201.     Lang,  '  Queensland, '  p.  342.     Eyre,  vol.  ii.  p.  360. 

*  Giey,  Journals,  vol.  ii.  p.  337.  4  Wilde,  Cat.  E.  I.  A.,  p.  19. 


SOME  REMARKABLE   CUSTOMS.  279 

that  which  is  common  to  all  savage  conjurors;"1  at  any  rate, 
its  similarity  in  so  many  and  distant  regions  is  highly  remark- 
able. It  is  to  be  noticed  that,  in  this  special  imposture,  we 
have  in  the  first  place  the  idea  that  a  disease  is  caused  by  some 
extraneous  substance  inside  the  body.  Among  possible  motives 
for  this  opinion,  it  has  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  certain  cases 
it  is  the  true  one,  as  where  the  savage  surgeon  really  cures  his 
patient  by  extracting  some  splinter  or  fragment  of  stone  arrow- 
head, or  other  peccant  object  really  imbedded  in  his  flesh.  But 
beyond  this,  we  have  the  belief  turned  to  account  in  remote 
parts  of  the  world  by  the  same  knavish  trick,  which  it  is  hard  to 
imagine  as  growing  up  independently  in  so  many  distant  places. 
In  the  civilized  world,  the  prohibition  from  marrying  kindred 
has  usually  stopped  short  of  forbidding  the  marriage  of  cousins 
gernian.  It  is  true  that  the  Roman  Ecclesiastical  Law  is,  at 
least  in  theory,  very  different  from  this.  Hallam  says,  "  Gre- 
gory I.  pronounces  matrimony  to  be  unlawful  as  far  as  the 
seventh  degree,  and  even,  if  I  understand  his  meaning,  as 
long  as  any  relationship  could  be  traced,  which  seems  to  have 
been  the  maxim  of  strict  theologians,  though  not  absolutely 
enforced."2  But  this  disability  may  be  reduced  by  the  dis- 
pensing power  to  the  ordinary  limits ;  and  in  practice  the 
Society  of  Friends  go  farther  than  the  Canon  La\v,  for  they 
really  prohibit  the  marriage  of  first  cousins.  If,  however,  we 
examine  the  law  of  marriage  among  certain  of  the  middle  and 
lower  races  scattered  far  and  wide  over  the  world,  a  variety  of 
such  prohibitions  will  be  found  which  overstep  the  practice, 
and  sometimes  even  approach  the  theory  of  the  Roman  Church. 
The  matter  belongs  properly  to  that  interesting,  but  difficult 
aud  almost  unworked  subject,  the  Comparative  Jurisprudence  of 
the  lower  races,  and  no  one  not  versed  in  Civil  Law  could  do  it 
justice  ;  but  it  may  be  possible  for  me  to  give  a  rough  idea  of  its 
various  modifications,  as  found  among  races  widely  separated 
from  one  another  in  place,  and,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  history.5 

1  Southey,  '  Brazil,'  vol.  i.  p.  238. 

•  Hallam,  'Middle  Ages,'  ch.  vii.  part  ii.     See  Du  Cange,  *.  v.  "generatio." 
3  Since  the  collection  of  the  present  evidence,  Mr.  J.  F.  M  'Lennan  has  published 
his  important  treatise  on   'Primitive   Marriage'    ^Edinburgh,  1S65).     In  this  work, 


280  SOME   REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS. 

In  India,  it  is  unlawful  for  a  Brahman  to  marry  a  wife  whose 
clan  name  or  gotra  (literally,  "  cow- stall ")  is  the  same  as  his 
own,  a  prohibition  which  bars  marriage  among  relatives  in  the 
male  line  indefinitely.  This  law  appears  in  the  Code  of  Maim 
as  applying  to  the  three  first  castes,  and  connexions  on  the 
female  side  are  also  forbidden  to  marry  within  certain  wide 
limits.  The  Abbe  Dubois,  nevertheless,  noticed  among  the 
Hindus  a  tendency  to  form  marriages  between  families  already 
connected  by  blood :  but  inasmuch  as,  according  to  his  account, 
relatives  in  the  male  line  go  on  calling  one  another  brother  and 
sister,  and  do  not  marry,  as  far  as  relationship  can  be  traced, 
were  it  to  the  tenth  generation,  and  the  same  in  the  female  line, 
the  very  natural  wish  to  draw  closer  the  family  tie  can  only  be 
accomplished  by  crossing  the  male  and  female  line,  the  brother's 
child  marrying  the  sister's  and  so  on.1 

The  Chinese  people  is  divided  into  a  number  of  clans,  each 
distinguished  by  a  name,  which  is  borne  by  all  its  members,  and 
corresponds  to  a  surname,  or  better  'to  a  clan-name  among  our- 
selves, for  the  wife  adopts  her  husband's,  and  the  sons  and 
daughters  inherit  it.  The  number  of  these  clan-names  is 
limited  ;  Davis  thinks  there  are  not  much  above  a  hundred,  but 
other  writers  talk  of  three  hundred,  and  even  of  a  thousand. 
Now,  the  Chinese  law  is  that  a  man  may  not  marry  a  woman  of 
his  own  surname,  so  that  relationship  by  the  male  side,  however 
distant,  is  an  absolute  bar  to  marriage.  This  stringent  prohibi- 
tion of  marriage  between  descendants  of  the  male  branch  would 
seem  to  be  very  old,  for  the  Chinese  refer  its  origin  to  the 
mythic  times  of  the  Emperor  Fu-hi,  whose  reign  is  placed  be- 
fore the  Hea  dynasty,  which  began,  according  to  Chinese  annals, 
in  2207  B.C.  Fu-hi,  it  is  related,  divided  the  people  into  100 
clans,  giving  each  a  name,  "  and  did  not  allow  a  man  to  marry 
a  woman  of  the  same  name,  whether  a  relative  or  not,  a  law 

the  first  systematic  and  scientific  attempt  to  elicit  general  principles  from  the  chaotic 
mass  of  details  of  savage  law,  he  endeavours  to  trace  the  origin  of  the  marriage-laws 
of  the  lower  races,  and  to  point  out  their  effects  still  remaining  in  the  customs  of 
civilized  nations.  His  classification  of  peoples  as  "endogamous"  or  "exogamous," 
according  to  their  habit  of  marrying  within  or  without  the  tribe  or  clan,  is  of  great 
value  in  simplifying  this  most  difficult  and  obscure  problem.  [Note  to  2nd  Edition.] 
1  Dubois,  vol.  i.  p.  10.  Mauu,  i.i.  5.  See  Colcman,  p.  291. 


SOME   REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS.  281 

which  is  still  actually  in  force."  There  appear  to  be  also 
prohibitions  applying  within  a  narrower  range  to  relation  on  the 
female  side,  and  to  certain  kinds  of  affinity.  Du  Halde  says, 
that  "  persons  who  are  of  the  same  family,  or  who  bear  the 
same  name,  however  distant  their  degree  of  affinity  may  be,  can- 
not marry  together.  Thus,  the  laws  do  not  allow  two  brothers 
to  marry  two  sisters,  nor  a  widower  to  marry  his  son  to  the 
daughter  of  a  widow  whom  he  marries."1 

In  Siam,  the  seventh  degree  of  blood-affinity  is  the  limit 
within  which  marriage  is  prohibited,  with  the  exception  that 
the  king  may  marry  his  sister,  as  among  the  Incas,  the  Lagide 
dynasty,  etc.,  and  even  his  daughter.2  Among  the  Land  Dayaks 
of  Borneo  the  marriage  of  first  cousins  is  said  to  be  prohibited, 
and  a  fine  of  a  jar  (which  represents  a  considerable  value)  imposed 
on  second  cousins  who  marry.3  In  Sumatra,  Marsden  says  that 
first  cousins,  the  children  of  two  brothers,  may  not  marry,  while 
the  sister's  son  may  marry  the  brother's  daughter,  but  not  rice 
versa.*  In  the  same  island,  it  is  stated,  upon  the  authority  of 
Sir  Stamford  Raffles,  that  the  Battas  hold  intermarriage  in  the 
same  tribe  to  be  a  heinous  crime,  and  that  they  punish  the 
delinquents  after  their  ordinary  manner  by  cutting  them  up 
alive,  and  eating  them  grilled  or  raw  with  salt  and  red  pepper. 
It  is  stated  distinctly  that  their  reason  for  considering  such 
marriages  as  criminal  is  that  the  man  and  woman  had  ancestors 
in  common.5  The  prohibition  of  marrying  a  relative  is  strongly 
marked  among  tribes  of  the  Malay  Peninsula.6 

Among  the  Tatar  race  in  Asia  and  Europe,  similar  restrictions 
are  to  be  found.  The  Ostyaks  hold  it  a  sin  for  two  persons  of 
the  same  family  name  to  marry,  so  that  a  man  must  not  take  a 
wife  of  his  ovn  tribe.7  The  Tunguz  do  not  marry  second  cousins; 
the  Samoieds  "  avoid  all  degrees  of  consanguinity  in  marrying  to 

1  Davis,  vol.  i.  p.  264.     Purchas,  vol.  iii.  pp.  367,  394.  Goguet,  vol.  iii.  p.  32?. 
Du  Halde,  Descr.  de  la  Chine  ;    The  Hague,   1736,   vol.  ii.   p.  145.     De  Mailla, 
vol.  i.  p.  6. 

2  Bowring,  vol.  i.  p.  185.         3  St.  John,  vol.  i.  p.  198.         4  Marsden,  p.  228. 

6  Letter  of  Raffles  to  Marsden,  in  Dr.  W.  Cooke  Taylor,  The  Nat.  Hist,  of  Society, 
vol.  i.  pp.  122-6. 

6  Joum.  Ind.  Archip.,  vol.  i.  p.  300.     Tr.  Eth.  Soc.,  vol.  iii.  p.  81. 

7  Bastian.  vol.  iii.  p.  299. 


282  SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS. 

such  a  degree,  that  a  man  never  marries  a  girl  descended  from 
the  same  family  with  himself,  however  distant  the  affinity  ; "  and 
the  Lapps  have  a  similar  custom.1  Even  among  the  Semitic 
race,  who,  generally  speaking,  rival  the  Carihs  in  the  practice  of 
mnrrying  "in  and  in,"  something  of  the  kind  is  found;  the 
tribe  Rebua  always  marries  into  the  tribe  Modjar,  and  vice 
versa? 

In  Africa,  the  marriage  of  cousins  is  looked  upon  as  illegal  in 
some  tribes,  and  the  practice  of  a  man  not  marrying  in  his  own 
clan  is  found  in  various  places.3  The  custom  in  Aquapim  is 
especially  suggestive ;  two  families  who  have  fetishes  of  the  same 
name  consider  themselves  related,  and  do  not  intermarry.4 
Munzinger,  the  Swiss  traveller  in  East  Africa,  suggests  Chris- 
tian influence  as  having  operated  in  this  direction.  The  Beni 
Amer,  north  of  Abyssinia,  follow  the  rules  of  Islam,  cousins 
often  marrying;  "the  Beit  Bidel  and  the  Allabje,  on  the  other 
hand,  mindful  of  their  Christian  origin,  observe  blood-relation- 
ship to  seven  degrees." 6  In  Madagascar,  Ellis  says  that  "  certain 
ranks  are  not  permitted  under  any  circumstances  to  intermarry, 
and  affinity  to  the  sixth  generation  also  forbids  intermarriage, 
yet  the  principal  restrictions  against  intermarriages  respect 
descendants  on  the  female  side.  Collateral  branches  on  the  male 
side  are  permitted  in  most  cases  to  intermarry,  on  the  observ- 
ance of  a  slight  but  prescribed  ceremony,  which  is  supposed  to 
remove  the  impediment  or  disqualification  arising  out  of  con- 
sanguinity."6 

Among  the  natives  of  Australia,  prohibitory  marriage  laws 
have  been  found,  but  they  are  very  far  from  being  uniform,  and 
may  sometimes  have  been  misunderstood.  Sir  George  Grey's 
account  is  that  the  Australians,  so  far  as  he  is  acquainted  with 
them,  are  divided  into  great  clans,  and  use  the  clan-name  as  a 
sort  of  surname  beside  the  individual  name.  Children  take  the 
family  name  of  the  mother,  and  a  man  cannot  marry  a  woman  of 
his  own  name,  so  that  here  it  would  seem  that  only  relationship 

1  Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  iii.  p.  68.  Ace.  of  Samuiedia,  in  Pinkerton,  vol.  ii.  p.  J32. 
Richardson,  '  Polar  Regions,'  p.  345.  2  Bastian,  I.  c. 

3  Casalis,  p.  191.     Backhouse,   '  Africa,' p.  182.     Burton  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.,  1861, 
p.  321.     Du  Chaillu,  p.  338.  *  Waitz,  vol.  ii.  p.  201,  see  355  (Zulus). 

4  Munzinger,  p.  319.  6  Eliis,  '  Madagascar,'  vol.  L  p.  164. 


SOME  KEMAEKABLE  CUSTOMS.  283 

by  the  female  side  is  taken  into  account.  One  effect  of  the 
division  of  clans  in  this  way,  is  that  the  children  of  the  same 
father  by  different  wives,  having  different  names,  may  be  obliged 
to  take  opposite  sides  in  a  quarrel.1  Mr.  Eyre's  experience  in 
South  Australia  does  not,  however,  correspond  with  Sir  George 
Grey's  in  the  West  and  North-West.2  Collins  believed  the 
custom  to  be  for  a  native  to  steal  a  wife  from  a  tribe  at  enmity 
with  his  own,  and  to  drag  her,  stunned  with  blows,  home  through 
the  woods ;  her  relations  not  avenging  the  affront,  but  taking  an 
opportunity  of  retaliating  in  kind.  It  appears  from  Nind's 
account,  that  in  some  districts  the  population  is  divided  into 
two  clans,  and  a  man  of  one  clan  can  only  marry  a  woman  of 
another.3  In  East  Australia,  Lang  describes  a  curious  and 
complex  system.  Through  a  large  extent  of  the  interior,  among 
tribes  speaking  different  dialects,  there  are  four  names  for  men, 
and  four  for  women,  Ippai  and  Ippata,  Kubbi  and  Kapota, 
Kumbo  and  Buta,  Murri  and  Mata.  If  we  call  these  four  sets 
A,  B,  C,  D,  then  the  rule  is  that  a  man  or  woman  of  the  tribe 
A  must  marry  into  B,  and  a  member  of  the  tribe  C  into  D,  and 
vice  versa,  but  the  child  whose  father  is  A,  takes  the  name  of  D, 
and  so  on ;  A's  =  D ;  B's  =  C  ;  C's  =  B ;  D's  =  A;  and  the 
mother's  name  answers  equally  well  to  give  the  name  of  the 
child,  if  the  mother  is  of  the  tribe  B,  her  child  will  belong  to 
the  tribe  D,  and  so  on. 

This  ingenious  arrangement,  it  will  be  seen,  has  much  the 
same  effect  as  the  Hindoo  regulations  in  preventing  intermarriage 
in  the  male  or  female  line,  but  allowing  the  male  and  female  line 
to  cross;  the  children  of  two  brothers  or  two  sisters  cannot 
marry,  but  the  brother's  child  may  marry  the  sister's.  Lang, 
however,  mentions  a  furthur  regulation,  probably  made  to  meet 
some  incidental  circumstances,  as,  so  far  as  it  goes,  it  stultifies 
the  whole  system ;  A  may  also  marry  into  his  or  her  own  tribe, 
and  the  children  take  the  name  of  C.4 

In  America,  the  custom  of  marrying  out  of  the  clan  is  frequent 
and  well  marked.  More  than  twenty  years  ago,  Sir  George 
Grey  called  attention  to  the  division  of  the  Australians  into 

1  Grey,  'Journals,'  vol.  ii.  pp.  225-30  2  Eyre,  vol.  ii.  p.  330. 

»  Collins,  vol.  i.  p.  559.     Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  i.  pp.  233,  319.         4  Lang,  p.  367. 


28*  SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS. 

families,  each  distinguished  by  the  name  of  some  animal  or 
vegetable,  which  served  as  their  crest  or  kobony  /  the  practice  of 
reckoning  clanship  from  the  mother ;  and  the  prohibition  of 
marriage  within  the  clan,  as  all  bearing  a  striking  resemblance 
to  similar  usages  found  among  the  natives  of  North  America. 
The  Indian  tribes  are  usually  divided  into  clans,  each  distin- 
guished by  a  totem  (Algonquin,  do-daim,  that  is  "  town  mark  "), 
which  is  commonly  some  animal,  as  a  bear,  wolf,  deer,  etc.,  and 
may  be  compared  on  the  one  hand  to  a  crest,  and  on  the  other 
to  a  surname.  The  totem  appears  to  be  held  as  proof  of  descent 
from  a  common  ancestor,  and  therefore  the  prohibition  from 
marriage  of  two  persons  of  the  same  totem  must  act  as  a  bar  on 
the  side  the  totem  descends  on,  which  is  generally,  if  not  always, 
on  the  female  side.  Such  a  prohibition  is  often  mentioned  by 
writers  on  the  North  American  Indians.1  Morgan's  account  of 
the  Iroquois'  rules  is  particularly  remarkable.  The  father  and 
child  can  never  be  of  the  same  clan,  descent  going  in  all  cases 
by  the  female  line.  Each  nation  had  eight  tribes,  in  two  sets  of 
four  each. 

1.  Wolf,         Bear,         Beaver,         Turtle. 

2.  Deer,         Snipe,        Heron,          Hawk. 

Originally  a  Wolf  might  not  marry  a  Bear,  Beaver,  or  Turtle, 
reckoning  himself  their  brother,  but  he  might  marry  into  the 
second  set,  Deer,  etc.,  whom  he  considered  his  cousins,  and  so 
on  with  the  rest.  But  in  later  times  a  man  is  allowed  to  marry 
into  any  tribe  but  his  own.2  A  recent  account  from  North-A\Y>t 
America  describes  the  custom  among  the  Indians  of  Nootka 
Sound ;  "a  Whale,  therefore,  may  not  marry  a  Whale,  nor  a 
Frog  a  Frog.  A  child,  again,  always  takes  the  crest  of  the 
mother,  so  that  if  the  mother  be  a  Wolf,  all  her  children  will  be 

1  Schoolcraft,   part  i.   p.  52  ;   part  ii.  p.    49.     Loskiel,  p.  72.     Talbot,  Disc,  of 
Lederer,  p.  4.     Waitz,  vol.  iii.  p.  106. 

2  L.  H.  Morgan,  'League  of  the  Iroquois,'  1851,  p.  79.     This  author  has  since,  in 
two  important  works,  attempted  the  task  not  only  of  tracing  the  position  of  the  clan 
or  gens  in  the  history  of  socie-y,   but  of  framing  a  general  theory  of  systems  of 
marriage  and  kinship.     See  his  '  Systems  of  Consanguinity  and  Affinity'  (Smithsonian 
Contributions),  Washington,   1871,  and  '  Ancient  Society,'  New  York  and  London, 
1877.     [Note  to  3rd  Edition.] 


SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS  285 

Wolves.  As  a  rule,  also,  descent  is  traced  from  the  mother,  not 
from  the  father."1 

The  analogy  of  the  North  American  Indian  custom  is  therefore 
with  that  of  the  Australians  in  making  clanship  on  the  female 
side  a  bar  to  marriage,  but  if  we  go  down  further  south  into 
Central  America,  the  reverse  custom,  as  in  China,  makes  its 
appearance.  Diego  de  Lauda  says  of  the  people  of  Yucatan, 
that  no  one  took  a  wife  of  his  name,  on  the  father's  side,  for  this 
was  a  very  vile  thing  among  them;  but  they  might  marry 
cousins  german  on  the  mother's  side.2  Further  south,  below  the 
Isthmus,  both  the  clanship  and  the  prohibition  reappear  on  the 
female  side.  Bernau  says  that  among  the  Arrawaks  of  British 
Guiana,  ' '  Caste  is  derived  from  the  mother,  and  children  are 
allowed  to  marry  into  their  father's  family,  but  not  into  that  of 
their  mother."3  Lastly,  Father  Martin  Dobrizhoffer  says  that 
the  Guaranis  avoided,  as  highly  criminal,  marriage  with  the 
most  distant  relatives,  and,  speaking  of  the  Abipones,  he  makes 
the  following  statement : — "  Though  the  paternal  indulgence  of 
the  Koman  Pontiffs  makes  the  first  and  second  degrees  of 
relationship  alone  a  bar  to  the  marriage  of  the  Indians,  yet 
the  Abipones,  instructed  by  nature  and  the  example  of  their 
ancestors,  abhor  the  very  thought  of  marrying  any  one  related 
to  them  by  the  most  distant  tie  of  relationship.  Long  experi- 
ence has  convinced  me,  that  the  respect  to  consanguinity,  by 
which  they  are  deterred  from  marrying  into  their  own  families, 
is  implanted  by  nature  in  the  minds  of  most  of  the  people  of 
Paraguay,"  etc.4 

In  the  study  of  this  remarkable  series  of  restrictions,  it  has 
to  be  borne  in  mind  that  their  various,  anomalous,  and  incon- 
sistent forms  may  be  connected  with  interfering  causes,  and  this 
one  in  particular,  that  the  especial  means  of  tracing  kindred  is 
by  a  system  of  surnames,  clan-names,  totems,  etc.  This  system 
is  necessarily  one-sided,  and  though  it  will  keep  up  the  record  of 
descent  either  on  the  male  or  female  side  perfectly  and  for  ever, 
it  cannot  record  both  at  once.  In  practice,  the  races  of  the  world 

1  Mayne,  Brit.  Columbia,  p.  257.  2  Landa,  p.  140.  3  Bernau,  p.  29. 

4  Dobrizhoffer,  vol.  i.  p.  63  ;   vol.  ii.  p.  212.     See  Guuiilla,  Hist.  Nat.,  etc.,  de 
1'Orenoque ;  Avignon,  1753,  vol.  iii.  p.  2(59. 


286  SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS. 

who  keep  such  a  record  at  all  have  had  to  elect  which  of  the  two 
lines,  male  or  female,  they  will  keep  up  hy  the  family  name  or 
sign,  while  the  other  line,  having  no  such  easy  means  of  record, 
is  more  or  less  neglected,  and  soon  falls  out  of  sight.  Under 
these  circumstances,  it  would  be  quite  natural  that  the  sign 
should  come  to  he  considered  rather  than  the  reality,  the  name 
rather  than  the  relationship  it  records,  and  that  a  series  of  one- 
sided restrictions  should  come  into  force,  now  bearing  upon  the 
male  side  rather  than  the  female,  and  now  upon  the  female  side 
rather  than  the  male,  roughly  matching  the  one-sided  way  in 
which  the  record  of  kindred  is  kept  up.  In  any  full  discussion, 
other  points  have  to  be  considered,  such  as  the  wish  to  bind  diffe- 
rent tribes  together  in  friendship  by  intermarriage,  and  the  opinion 
that  a  wife  is  a  slave  to  be  stolen  from  the  stranger,  not  taken 
from  a  man's  own  people. 

There  is  a  good  deal  in  this  last  consideration,  as  we  may  see 
by  the  practice  of  the  Spartan  marriage,  in  which,  though  the 
bride's  guardians  had  really  sanctioned  the  union,  the  pretence  of 
carrying  her  off  by  force  was  kept  up  as  a  time-honoured  cere- 
mony. The  Spartan  marriage  is  no  isolated  custom,  it  is  to  be 
found  among  the  Circassians,1  and  in  South  America.2  Wil- 
liams says  that  on  the  large  islands  of  the  Fiji  group,  the 
custom  is  often  found  of  seizing  upon  a  woman  by  apparent  or 
actual  force,  in  order  to  make  her  a  wife.  If  she  does  not  ap- 
prove the  proceeding,  she  runs  off  when  she  reaches  the  man's 
house,  but  if  she  is  satisfied  she  stays.3  In  these  cases  the 
abduction  is  a  mere  pretence,  but  it  is  kept  up  seemingly  as  a 
relic  of  a  ruder  time  when,  as  among  the  modern  Australians, 
it  was  done  by  no  means  as  a  matter  of  form,  but  in  grim 
earnest.  A  few  more  cases  will  illustrate  the  stages  through 
•which  this  remarkable  custom  has  passed,  from  the  actual 
violent  carrying  off  of  unwilling  women,  down  to  the  formal 
pretence  of  abduction  kept  up  as  a  marriage  ceremony.  Among 
the  Kols  of  North-East  India-,  in  public  market,  a  young  man 
with  a  party  of  friends  will  carry  off  a  girl,  struggling  and 
screaming,  but  no  one  not  interested  interferes,  and  the  girl's 

-  Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  iv.  p.  26.  2  Wallace,  p.  497.     See  Perty,  p.  270. 

3  Williams,  vol.  i.  p.  174. 


SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS.  287 

female  friends  are  apt  to  applaud  the  exploit.1  The  Mantras 
of  the  Xalay  Peninsula,  on  the  wedding-day,  give  the  bride  a 
start,  and  then  the  bridegroom  must  catch  her  or  forfeit  her. 
The  course  is  sometimes  round  a  ring,  but  sometimes  there  is  a 
fair  chase  into  the  forest,  whsnce  an  unwelcome  lover  may  well 
fail  to  bring  back  an  unwilling  bride.3  Among  the  Esquimaux 
of  the  last  century,  the  form  of  bride-lifting  was  in  use,  nor  was 
its  serious  meaning  forgotten,  for  sometimes  a  Greenlander  de- 
sirous of  a  second  wife,  would  simply  pounce  upon  an  unpro- 
tected female,  or  with  his  friends'  help  carry  off  a  girl  from  a 
dance.  The  form  still  continues ;  among  the  Itiplik  tribe  it  has 
been  recently  remarked  that  there  is  no  marriage  ceremony 
further  than  that  the  lad  has  by  main  force  to  carry  off  the 
kicking  and  screaming  girl,  who  plays  the  Sabine  bride  as 
though  the  marriage  were  not  an  arranged  affair.3  In  modern 
China,  the  capture  of  the  bride  is  recognized  as  something  more 
than  a  form.  Should  the  parents  of  a  betrothed  damsel  delay 
unconscionably  to  fulfil  the  contract,  it  is  a  recognized  thing 
for  the  husband  elect  to  carry  off  his  bride  by  main  force,  and 
indeed  the  very  threat  of  this  proceeding  generally  brings  the 
old  people  to  a  surrender.4  The  Spartan  marriage  has  lasted  in 
other  European  districts  into  modern  centuries.  In  Slavonic 
countries,  though  sunk  to  mere  ceremony,  it  is  not  forgotten.5 
In  Friesland  the  memory  of  it  is  kept  up  by  the  "  bride-lifter  " 
who  lifts  the  bride  and  her  bridesmaid  upon  the  waggon.  As 
for  our  own  country,  it  was  retained  in  the  marriage  customs  of 
mock  combats  and  spear-throwing  in  Wales  and  Ireland  into  the 
last  centuries.6 

1  Dalton,  Kols,  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc. ,  TO!,  vi.  p.   27  ;    see  also   Shortt,    Jeypore,  ibid, 
p.  266.  *  Bourien,  ibid.,  vol.  iii.  p.  81. 

3  Cranz,  Gronland,  p.  209.      Haye?,  'Open  Polar  Sea  ;'  London,  18(57,  p.  437. 

4  Doolittle,  Chinese,  vol.  i.  p.  104.  5  H.nnusch,  'Slaw.  Mythus;'  p,  344. 
6  Brand,  vol.  ii.  p.  139,  147  ;  E.  J.  "Wood,  'The  Wedding  Day  in  all  Ages,'  vol.  ii. 

Mr.  M'Leiiiiciu  (see  above,  p.  281)  takes  the  same  view  as  I  have  done  of  the  import 
of  the  Spartan  marriage,  which  he  calls  the  "form  of  capture,"  as  indicating  previous 
habit  of  bride-capture  in  earnest.  He  argues  from  the  wide  distribution  of  the  form, 
that  the  reality  was  prevalent  in  early  social  conditions  of  the  human  race.  I  have 
added  several  cases  to  those  mentioned  in  the  first  edition  of  this  work,  and  the  whole 
should  be  ad  del  to  Mr.  M'Lennan's  collection  to  represent  the  general  evidence  of  the 
subject,  which  is  one  of  much  importance  in  the  history  of  mankind. 


283  SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS. 

Lastly,  restrictions  from  marriage  are  occasionally  found 
applied  to  cases  where  the  relationship  is  more  or  less  imagi- 
nary ;  as  in  ancient  Rome,  where  adoption  had  in  some  measure 
the  effect  of  consanguinity  in  harring  marriage ;  or  among  tie 
Moslems,  where  relation  to  a  foster-family  operates  more  fully 
in  the  same  way  ;  or  in  the  Roman  Church,  where  sponsorship 
creates  a  restriction  from  marriage,  even  among  the  co-sponsors, 
which  it  requires  a  dispensation  to  remove.  Again,  two  members 
of  a  Circassian  brotherhood,  though  no  relationship  is  to  be 
traced  between  them,  may  not  marry,1  and  even  among  the 
savage  Tupinambas  of  Brazil,  two  men  who  adopted  one 
another  as  brothers  were  prohibited  from  marrying  each 
other's  sisters  and  daughters.2  But  such  practices  as  these 
may  reasonably  be  set  down  as  mere  consequences  of  the 
transfer  both  of  the  rights  and  the  obligations  of  consanguinity 
to  other  kinds  of  connexion,  and  so  do  not  touch  the  general 
question.. 

To  consider  now  the  third  group  of  customs,  it  is  natural 
enough  that  there  should  be  found  even  among  savage  tribes 
rules  concerning  respect,  authority,  precedence,  and  so  forth, 
between  fathers-  and  mothers-in-law  and  their  sons-  and 
daughters-in-law.  But  with  these  there  are  found,  in  the  most 
distant  regions  of  the  world,  regulations  which  to  a  great  ex- 
tent coincide,  but  which  lie  so  far  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of 
social  life  as  understood  by  the  civilized  world,  that  it  is  hard 
even  to  guess  what  state  of  things  can  have  brought  them  into 
existence. 

Among  the  Arawaks  of  South  America,  it  was  not  lawful  for 
th  ton-in  law  to  s-ee  the  face  of  his  motber-in-law.  If  tl  ey 
lived  in  the  same  house,  a  partition  must  be  set  up  between 
them.  If  they  went  in  the  same  boat,  she  had  to  <  et  in  first, 
so  as  to  keep  h(r  back  turned  towards  him.  Among  the  Ca- 
rib  ,  Rochefort  says,  "  all  the  women  talk  with  whom  they  v,  ill, 
but  the  husband  dares  not  converse  with  his  wife's  relatives, 

except  on   extraordinary  occasions."3     Further  north,  in  the 

•. 

1  Kleram,  C.  Q.,  vol.  iv.  p.  24.  *  Southey,  vol.  i.  p.  250. 

1  Klpmm,  C.  G.,  vol.  ii.  p.  77.     Rochefort,  Hist.   Nat.,   etc.,  des  lies  Antilles; 
Rotterdam,  1665,  p.  545. 


SOME   REMARKABLE   CUSTOMS.  289 

account  of  the  Floridan  expedition  of  Alvar  Nunez,  commonly 
known  as  Cabeca  de  Yaca,  or  Cow's-Head,  it  is  mentioned  that 
the  parents-in-law  did  not  enter  the  sou-in-law's  house,  nor 
he  theirs,  nor  1  is  hrothers'-in-law,  and  if  they  met  by  chance, 
they  went  a  bowshot  out  of  their  way,  w:th  their  heads  down 
fmd  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground,  for  they  held  it  a  bad  thing  to  see 
or  speak  to  one  another  ;  but  the  women  were  free  to  com- 
municate and  converse  with  their  parents-in-law  and  relative  ,l 
Higher  up  on  the  North  American  continent,  customs  of  this 
kind  have  often  been  described.  In  the  account  of  Major 
Long's  Expedition  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  it  is  observed  that 
among  vhe  Ornahas  the  father-  and  mother-in-law  do  not  speak 
to  their  son-in-law,  nor  mention  uis  name,  nor  look  in  his  face, 
and  rice  versa*  Among  the  Sioux  or  Dacotas,  Mr.  Philander 
Prescott  remarks  on  the  fear  of  uttering  certain  names.  The 
father-  or  mother-in-law  must  not  call  their  son-in-law  by  name, 
and  vice  versa,  and  there  are  other  relationships  to  which  the 
prohibition  applies.  He  has  known  an  infringement  of  it 
punished  by  cutting  the  offender's  clothes  off  his  back  and 
throwing  them  a»*ay.s  Harmon  says  that  among  the  Indians 
e;  st  of  he  Rocky  Mountains,  it  is  indecent  for  the  father-  or 
mother-in  law  to  look  at,  or  speak  to,  the  son-  or  daughter-in- 
law.4  Among  the  Crees,  it  is  observed  by  Richardson  that 
while  an  Indian  lives  with  his  wife's  family  his  mother-in-law 
must  not  speak  to  or  look  at  him,  and  it  is  also  an  old  custom 
for  a  man  n  ;t  to  eat  or  to  •  sit  down  in  the  presence  of  his 
father-in-law.5 

In  some  parts  of  Australia,  the  mother-in-law  does  not  allow 
the  son-in-law  to  see  her,  but  hides  herself  if  he  is  near,  and  if 
she  has  to  pass  him  makes  a  circuit,  keeping  herself  carefully 
concealed  with  her  cloak.  Also,  the  names  of  a  father-  or 
mother-in-law  and  of  a  son-in-law  are  set  down  among  the 

1  Alvar  Nufi.3z,  in  vol.  i.  of  '  Historiadores  Primitives  de  Indias ;'  Madrid,  1852, 
etc.,  chap.  xxv. 

•  Long's  Exp.  vol.  i.  p.  253. 

3  Schoolcraft,  part  ii.  p.  196. 

4  Harmon,  p.  341. 

5  Franklin,  'Journey  to  the  Shores  of  the  Polar  Sea;'  London,  1823,  pp.  70-1. 
See  "\Yaitz,  '  Anthropologie  ;'  vol.  iii.  p.  104. 

u 


200  SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS. 

personal  names  which  must  not  be  spoken.1  In  the  Fiji  Islands 
prohibition  of  speech  between  parents-in-law  and  children- in- 
law  has  been  recorded.2  Among  the  Dayaks  of  Borneo,  a  man 
must  not  pronounce  the  name  of  his  father-in-law,  which  custom 
Mr.  St.  John,  who  mentions  it,  interprets  as  a  sign  of  respect.3 
On  the  continent  of  Asia,  among  the  Mongols  and  Calmucks, 
the  young  wife  may  not  speak  to  her  father-in-law  nor  sit  in  his 
presence,4  but  farther  north,  among  tiie  Yakuts,  Adolph  Eruiau 
noticed  a  much  more  peculiar  custom.  As  in  other  northern 
regions,  the  custom  of  wearing  but  little  clothing  in  the  hot, 
stifling  interior  of  the  huts  is  common  there,  and  the  women 
often  go  about  their  domestic  work  stripped  to  the  waist,  nor  do 
they  object  to  do  so  in  the  presence  of  strangers,  but  there  aro 
two  persons  before  whom  a  Yakut  woman  must  not  appear  in 
this  guise,  her  father-in-law  and  her  husband's  elder  brother.5 
In  Africa,  among  the  Beni  Amer,  the  wife  "  hides  herself,  as 
does  the  husband  also,  from  the  mother-in-law ;  "  while  among 
the  Barea  the  wife  "  hides  herself  from  her  father-in-law,  a 
ing  to  custom,  which  herein  agrees  with  that  of  the  aristocratic 
peoples."6  The  prohibition  of  look  and  speech  between  a  man 
end  his  mother-in-law  is  found  again  in  Ashanti,  and  in  the  dis- 
trict of  the  Mpongwe.7  Farther  south,  in  Zululand,  the  Austra- 
lian customs  recur  with  all  their  quaint  absurdity.  The  Kafir 
and  his  mother-in-law  will  not  mention  one  another's  names  nor 
look  in  one  another's  faces,  and  if  the  two  chance  to  meet  in  a 
narrow  lane  they  will  pretend  not  to.  see  each  other,  she  squatting 
behind  a  bush,  he  holding  up  his  shield  to  hide  his  face.  The 
native  term  for  these  customs  is  "  being  ashamed  of  the  mother- 
in-law."  8  The  Basuto  custom  forbids  a  wife  to  look  in  the  face 
of  her  father-in-law  till  the  birth  of  her  first  child,9  and  among 
the  Banyai  a  man  must  sit  with  his  knees  bent  in  presence  of  his 
mother-in-law,  and  must  not  put  out  his  feet  towards  her.10 

1  Stanbridge  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.,   vol.   i.  p.   289 ;    Oldfield,  ibid.,  vol.  iii.  p.   -J51. 
Eyre,  vol.  ii.  p.  339. 

-  Williams,  vol.  i.  p.  136.  •  ?t.  John,  vol.  5.  p.  51. 

4  Klemra,  C.  G  ,  vol.  iii.  p.  169.  «  Erm-\n,  E.  Tr.,  vol.  ii.  p.  420. 

6  Munzinger,  pp.  325,  526.  '•  Waitz,  vol.  ii.  p.  201. 

*  J.  G.  Wood,  'Xat.  Hist,  of  Man  ;  Africa  ;'  p.  87.  s  Ca^alis,  p.  201. 
10  Livingstone,  p.  6-2. 


SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS.  291 

Of  this  curio  as  series  of  customs,  I  have  met  with  no  inter- 
pretation which  can  be  put  forward  with  confidence.  Their 
object  seems  to  be  in  general  the  avo 'dance  of  intercourse  or 
connexion  between  parents-in-law  and  ohildren-in-law,  some- 
times to  such  an  extent  that  one  person  may  not  look  at  the 
other,  or  even  pronounce  his  or  her  name.  But  the  reasons  for 
this  avoidance  are  not  clear.1  It  is  possible  that  a  fuller  study 
of  the  law  of  tabu  may  throw  some  light  on  the  matter.  The 
extraordinary  summary  of  Fijian  customs  given  by  the  Rev. 
Thomas  Williams,  may  be  here  quoted  in  full ;  it  is  probably  to 
be  understood  as  taking  in  occasional  or  local  practices.  "  A 
free  flow  of  the  affections  between  members  of  the  same  family 
is  further  prevented  by  the  strict  observance  of  national  or  re- 
ligious customs,  imposing  a  most  unnatural  restraint.  Brothers 
and  sisters,  first  cousins,  fathers-  and  sons-in-law,  mothers-  and 
daughters-in-law,  and  brothers-  and  sisters-in-law,  are  thus  sever- 
ally forbidden  to  speak  to  each  other,  or  to  eat  from  the  same 
dish.  The  latter  embargo  extends  to  husbands  and  wives, — an 
arrangement  not  likely  to  foster  domestic  joy."  Elsewhere  the 
same  author  says,  "  in  some  parts,  the  father  may  not  speak  to 
his  son  after  his  fifteenth  year."  :  Reading  this,  we  can  hardly 
pass  unnoticed  the  assertion  that  among  the  VedJas  of  Ceylon,  a 
father  will  not  see  his  daughter,  nor  a  mother  her  son,  after  they 
have  come  to  years  of  maturity.3 

The  fourth  and  last  group  of  customs  has  long  been  under 
notice,  and  lists  have  even  been  made  of  countries  where  prac- 
tices belonging  to  it  have  been  found.4  One  of  these  practices 
has  an  existing  European  name,  the  couvade,  or  "hatching," 
and  this  term  it  may  be  convenient  to  use  for  the  whole  set. 
By  working  up  the  old  information  with  the  aid  of  some  new 
facts,  I  have  endeavoured  to  give  an  account,  not  only  of  the 
geographical  distribution  of  the  couvade,  but  of  its  nature  and 
meaning.  The  most  convenient  way  of  discussing  it  is  first  to 

1  See  St.  John,  Harmon,  and  Franklin,  locis  citatis. 

8  Williams,  'Fiji,'  vol.  i.  pp.  136,  166.     See  Mariner,  vol.  ii.  p.  147. 

3  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.,  vol.  iii.  p.  71. 

4  M'CuIloh,  Researches  ;  Baltimore,  1829,  p.  99.     Waitz,  vol.  i.  p.  294  ;  E.  Tr., 
p.  257.     Humboldt  &  Bonpland,  Tr.,  vol.  vi.  p.  333.     Lafitau,  vol.  i.  p.  49. 

U  2 


292  SOME  REMARKABLE   CUSTOMS. 

examine  the  forms  it  takes  in  South  America  and  the  "West 
Indies,  the  district  where  it  is  not  only  developed  to  the  highest 
degree,  but  is  also  practised  with  a  clear  notion  of  what  it 
means ;  and  afterwards  to  trace  its  more  scattered  and  obscure 
appearances  in  other  quarters  of  the  world. 

The  following  account  is  given  by  Du  Tertre  of  the  Carib 
couvade  in  the  West  Indies.  When  a  child  is  born,  the  mother 
goes  presently  to  her  work,  but  the  father  begins  to  complain, 
and  takes  to  his  hammock,  and  there  he  is  visited  as  though  he 
were  sick,  and  undergoes  a  course  of  dieting  which  would  cure 
of  the  gout  "the  most  replete  of  Frenchmen.  How  they  can 
fast  so  much  and  not  die  of  it,"  continues  the  narrator,  "  is 
amazing  to  me,  for  they  sometimes  pass  the  five  first  days  with- 
out eating  or  drinking  anything;  then  up  to  the  tenth  they 
drink  oiiycou,  which  has  about  as  much  nourishment  in  it  as 
beer.  These  ten  days  passed,  they  begin  to  eat  cassava  only, 
drinking  oiiycou,  and  abstaining  from  everything  else  for  the 
space  of  a  whole  month.  During  this  time,  however,  they  only 
eat  the  inside  of  the  cassava,  so  that  what  is  left  is  like  the  rim 
of  a  hat  when  the  block  has  been  taken  out,  and  all  these 
cassava  rims  they  keep  for  the  feast  at  the  end  of  forty  days, 
hanging  them  up  in  the  house  with  a  cord.  When  the  forty 
days  are  up  they  invite  their  relations  and  best  friends,  who 
being  arrived,  before  they  set  to  eating,  hack  the  skin  of  this 
poor  wretch  with  agouti-teeth,  and  draw  blood  from  all  parts  of 
his  body,  in  such  sort  that  from  being  sick  by  pure  imagination 
they  often  make  a  real  patient  of  him.  This  is,  however,  so  to 
speak,  only  the  fish,  for  now  comes  the  sauce  they  prepare  for 
him ;  they  take  sixty  or  eighty  large  grains  of  pimento  or  Indian 
pepper,  the  strongest  they  can  get,  and  after  well  mashing  it  in 
water,  they  wash  with  this  peppery  infusion  the  wounds  and 
scars  of  the  poor  fellow,  who  I  believe  suffers  no  less  than  if  he 
were  burnt  alive ;  however,  he  must  not  utter  a  single  word  if 
he  will  not  pass  for  a  coward  and  a  wretch.  This  ceremony 
finished,  they  bring  him  back  to  his  bed,  where  he  remains  some 
days  more,  and  the  rest  go  and  make  good  cheer  in  the  house  at 
his  expense.  Nor  is  this  all,  for  through  the  space  of  six  whole 
months  he  eats  neither  birds  nor  fish,  firmly  believing  that  this 


SOME   REMARKABLE   CUSTOMS.  293 

would  injure  the  child's  stomach,  and  that  it  would  participate 
in  the  natural  faults  of  the  animals  on  which  its  father  had  fed  ; 
for  example,  if  the  father  ate  turtle,  the  child  would  he  deaf  and 
have  no  hrains  like  this  animal,  if  he  ate  manati,  the  child 
would  have  little  round  eyes  like  this  creature,  and  so  on  with 
the  rest."  l 

The  Abate  Gilij,  after  mentioning  the  wide  prevalence  of  the 
fasting  of  the  father  on  the  birth  of  the  child,  among  the  tribes 
of  the  east  side  of  South  America,  goes  on  as  follows  : — "  But  I 
know  not  if  the  cause  is  equally  well  known,  why  the  Indians 
fast  in  such  manner.  I  in  the  very  beginning  of  my  stay  among 
them  had  the  opportunity  of  discovering  it,  and  this  was  how  it 
happened.  A  fortified  house  having  to  be  built  for  the  soldiers 
to  live  in,  as  was  usual  for  the  defence  not  of  the  missionaries 
alone,  but  also  of  the  reduced  Indians,  the  Tamanacs,  they  being 
still  gentiles,  were  summoned  by  the  corporal  Ermengildo  Leale 
to  work  at  it,  and  it  was  noticed  that  a  certain  Maracajuri,  when 
the  work  was  done,  went  away  fasting,  without  even  tasting  a 
mouthful.  '  What,  has  he  no  appetite  ?  '  asked  Leale  in  sur- 
prise. 'To  be  sure  he  has,'  rejoined  the  other  Indians,  'but 
his  wife  has  had  a  child  to-day,  so  he  must  not  make  use  of 
these  victuals,  for  the  little  boy  would  die.'  'But  when  our 
wives  are  brought  to  bed,'  said  the  corporal,  '  we  eat  more 
abundantly  and  more  joyously  than  usual,  and  our  children  do 
not  die  of  it.'  '  But  you  are  Spaniards,'  the  fools  replied,  '  and 
if  your  eating  does  no  harm  to  your  babies,  you  may  be  sure, 
nevertheless,  that  it  is  most  hurtful  to  ours.'  It  may  be  easily 
imagined  what  laughter  there  was  at  this  absurd  notion.  'But 
not  only  the  father's  food,'  the  Tamanacs  went  on  to  say,  'but 
even  killing  fish  or  any  other  animal  on  such  days,  would  do 
harm  to  the  children.'  When  I  knew  of  this  nonsense,  I  set 
myself  to  work  to  seek  out  the  motive  of  it,  and  taking  aside  one 
of  the  most  reasonable  of  the  savages :  '  tell  me,'  I  said,  '  as  the 
Spaniards  do  not  fast  at  the  birth  of  their  children,  for  what 

1  Du  Tertre,  Hist.  Gen.  des  Antilles  habitees  par  les  Frangais  ;  Paris,  1667,  vol.  ii. 
p.  371,  etc.  See  Rochefort,  Hist.  Nat.  et  Mor.  des  lies  des  Antilles  ;  Rotterdam, 
1665,  2nd  ed.  p.  550.  It  seems  from  his  account  that  the  very  severe  fasting  was 
only  for  the  first  child,  that  for  the  others  being  slight. 


294  SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS. 

reason  do  you  fast  at  such  a  joyful  moment  ? '  '  The  child  is 
ours,  and  proceeds  from  us,'  replied  the  savage,  '  and  the  cooked 
food  used  by  grown  folks,  which  is  profitable  for  us  at  other 
times,  would  now  do  the  little  children  harm,  if  we  ate  it.'  So  I 
observed  a  sort  of  identity  which  he  supposed  to  exist  between 
father  and  son,"  etc.  The  missionary  goes  on  to  relate  how  he 
cured  the  Indian  of  the  delusion,  by  showing  that  to  give  him  a 
thrashing  would  have  no  effect  on  his  child.1 

Among  the  Arawaks  of  Surinam,  for  some  time  after  the  birth 
of  hid  child,  the  father  must  fell  no  tree,  fire  no  gun,  hunt  no 
large  game  ;  he  may  stay  near  home,  shoot  little  birds  with  a 
bow  and  arrow,  and  angle  for  little  fish  ;  but  his  time  hanging 
heavy  on  his  hands,  the  most  comfortable  thing  he  can  do  is  to 
lounge  in  his  hammock.2  Of  the  couvade  among  the  fierce 
equestrian  tribe  of  the  Abipones,  whose  home  lay  south  of  the 
centre  of  the  continent,  the  Jesuit  missionary  Dobrizhoffer  gives 
a,  full  account.  "No  sooner  do  you  hear  that  the  wife  has  borne 
a  child,  than  you  will  see  the  Abipone  husband  lying  in  bed, 
huddled  up  with  mats  and  skins  lest  some  ruder  breath  of  air 
should  touch  him,  fasting,  kept  in  private,  and  for  a  number  of 
days  abstaining  religiously  from  certain  viands ;  you  would  swear 
it  was  he  who  had  had  the  child  ....  I  had  read  about  this  in 
old  times,  and  laughed  at  it,  never  thinking  I  could  believe 
such  madness,  and  I  used  to  suspect  that  this  barbarian  custom 
was  related  more  in  jest  than  in  earnest;  but  at  last  I  saw  it  with 
my  own  eyes  in  use  among  the  Abipones.  And  in  truth  they 
observe  this  ancestral  custom,  troublesome  as  it  is,  the  more 
willingly  and  diligently  from  their  being  altogether  persuaded 
that  the  sobriety  and  quiet  of  the  fathers  is  effectual  for  the  well- 
being  of  the  newr-born  offspring,  and  is  even  necessary.  Hear, 
I  pray,  a  confirmation  of  this  matter.  Francisco  Barreda, 
Deputy  of  the  Royal  Governor  of  Tucuman,  came  to  visit  the 
new  colony  of  Conceicam  in  the  territory  of  Santiago.  To  him, 
as  he  was  walking  with  me  in  the  courtyard,  the  Cacique  Malakin 
came  up  to  pay  his  respects,  having  just  left  his  bed,  to  which 
he  had  been  confined  in  consequence  of  his  wife's  recent  delivery. 

1  Gilij,  'Saggio  di  Storia  Americana,'  rol.  ii.  p.  133,  etc. 
J  Quandt,  in  Klemm,  C.  G.  roL  iL  p.  83. 


SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS.  295 

As  I  stood  by,  Barreda  offered  the  Cacique  a  pinch  of  Spanish 
snuff,  but  seeing  the  savage  refuse  it  contrary  to  custom,  he 
thought  he  must  be  out  of  his  mind,  for  he  knew  him  at  other 
times  to  be  greedy  of  this  nasal  delicacy  ;  so  he  asked  me  aside 
to  inquire  the  cause  of  his  abstinence.-  I  asked  him  in  the 
Abiponian  tongue  (for  this  Barreda  was  ignorant  of,  as  the 
Cacique  was  of  Spanish),  why  he  refused  his  snuff  to-day? 
'  Don't  you  know  ?  '  he  answered,  '  that  my  wife  has  just  been 
confined  ?  Must  not  I  therefore  abstain  from  stimulating  my 
nostrils  ?  What  a  danger  my  sneezing  would  bring  upon  my 
child  !  '  Xo  more,  but  he  went  back  to  his  hut  to  lie  down 
again  directly,  lest  the  tender  little  infant  should  take  some 
harm  if  he  stayed  any  longer  with  us  in  the  open  air.  For  they 
believe  that  the  father's  carelessness  influences  the  new-born 
offspring,  from  a  natural  bond  and  sympathy  of  both.  Hence  if 
the  child  comes  to  a  premature  end,  its  death  is  attributed  by 
the  women  to  the  father's  intemperance,  this  or  that  cause  being 
assigned ;  he  did  not  abstain  from  mead ;  he  had  loaded  his 
stomach  with  water-hog  ;  he  had  swum  across  the  river  when 
the  air  was  chilly ;  he  had  neglected  to  shave  off  his  long 
eyebrows  ;  he  had  devoured  underground  honey,  stamping  on 
the  bees  with  his  feet ;  he  had  ridden  till  he  was  tired  and 
sweated.  "With  raving  like  this  the  crowd  of  women  accuse  the 
father  with  impunity  of  causing  the  child's  death,  and  are  accus- 
tomed to  pour  curses  on  the  unoffending  husband."1 

We  have  laid  open  to  us  in  these  accounts  a  notably  distinct 
view,  among  the  lower  races,  of  a  mental  state  hard  to  trace 
among  those  high  in  the  scale  of  civilization.  The  couvade  im- 
plicitly denies  that  physical  separation  of  "  individuals,"  which 
a  civilized  man  would  probably  set  down  as  a  first  principle, 
common  by  nature  to  all  mankind,  till  experience  of  the  psycho- 
logy of  the  savage  showed  him  that  he  was  mistaking  educa- 
tion for  intuition.  It  shows  us  a  number  of  distinct  and  distant 
tribes  deliberately  holding  the  opinion  that  the  connexion  be- 

1  Dobrizhofier,  '  Historia  de  Abiponibus  ;'  Vienna,  1784,  vol.  ii.  p  231,  etc.  For 
other  South  American  accounts  of  the  couvade,  see  Biet,  Voy.  do  la  France  Equinox., 
p.  389.  Fermin,  Descr.  de  Surinam;  Amsterdam,  1769,  p.  81.  IVhudi,  'Peru,' 
vol.  ii.  p.  235.  Purchas,  vol.  iv.  p.  1291.  Spix  &  Martius,  pp.  lli.6,  13U9.  Ploss, 
'  Das  Kind,'  vol.  i.  p.  lol 


296  SOME   REMARKABLE   CUSTOMS. 

tween  father  and  child  is  not  only,  as  we  think,  a  mere  relation 
of  parentage,  affection,  duty,  but  that  their  very  bodies  are 
joined  by  a  physical  bond,  so  that  what  is  done  to  the  one  acts 
directly  upon  the  other.  The  couvade  is  not  the  only  result  of 
the  opinion  which  thus  repudiates  the  physical  severance  that 
seems  to  come  so  natural  to  us  :  and  this  opinion  again  belongs, 
like  Sorcery  and  Divination,  to  the  mental  state  in  which  man 
does  not  separate  the  subjective  mental  connexion  from  the 
objective  physical  connexion,  the  connexion  which  is  inside  his 
mind  from  the  connexion  which  is  outside  it,  in  the  same  way  in 
which  most  educated  men  of  the  higher  races  make  this  separa- 
tion. A  few  more  cases  will  further  illustrate  the  effects  of  such 
a  condition  of  mind.  Not  only  is  it  held  that  the  actions  of  the 
father,  and  the  food  that  he  eats,  influence  his  child  both  before 
and  after  its  birth,  but  that  the  actions  and  food  of  survivors 
affect  the  spirits  of  the  dead  on  their  journey  to  their  home  in 
the  after  life.  Among  the  Land  Dayaks  of  Borneo,  the  husband, 
before  the  birth  of  his  child,  may  do  no  work  with  a  sharp  in- 
strument except  what  is  necessary  for  the  farm ;  nor  may  he  fire 
guns,  nor  strike  animals,  nor  do  any  violent  work,  lest  bad 
influences  should  affect  the  child  ;  and  after  it  is  born  the  father 
is  kept  in  seclusion  indoors  for  several  days,  and  dieted  on  rice 
and  salt,  to  prevent  not  his  own  but  the  child's  stomach  from 
swelling.1  In  Kamchatka,  the  husband  must  not  do  such 
things  as  bend  sledge  staves  across  his  knee  before  his  child  is 
born,  for  such  actions  do  harm  to  his  wife.2  In  Greenland,  not 
only  may  a  woman  after  the  birth  of  a  child  only  eat  fish  and 
meat  taken  by  her  husband,  but  the  husband  must  for  some 
weeks  do  no  work  and  follow  no  occupation,  except  the  procuring 
of  necessary  food,  and  this  in  order  that  the  ch  Id  may  not  die. 
When  a  Greenlander  dies,  his  soul  starts  to  travel  to  the  land  of 
Torngarsuk,  where  reigns  perpetual  summer,  all  sunshine  and  no 

1  St.  John,  vol.  L  p.  160.     Tr.  Eth.  Roc.,  1863,  p.  233.     Compare  the  eight  days' 
frist  in  Madagascar  of  the  fathers  whose  children  were  to  be  circumcised.     Voy.  of 
Precis  Cauche,  p.   51,  in  Eel.  de  Madagascar,  etc. ;  Paris,  1651.     See  also  Yate, 
'New  Zealand,'  p.  82. 

2  Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  ii  p.  207.      Steller,    '  Kamchatka,'  p.   351.      The  Lapp 
superstition  against  putting  a  handle  to  an  axe  in  the  house  of  a  lying-in  woman,  or 
lying  knots  in  her  garments,  is  similar.     See  Lcems  in  Finkerton,  voL  L  p.  483. 


SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS.  297 

night,  where  there  is  good  water,  and  birds,  fish,  seals,  and 
reindeer  without  end,  that  are  to  be  caught  without  trouble,  or 
are  found  cooking  alive  in  a  huge  kettle.  But  the  journey  to 
this  blessed  land  is  difficult,  the  souls  have  to  slide  five  days  or 
more  down  a  precipice  all  stained  with  the  blood  of  those  who 
have  gone  down  before.  And  it  is  especially  grievous  for  the  poor 
souls  when  the  journey  must  be  made  in  winter  or  in  tempest, 
for  then  a  soul  may  come  to  harm,  and  suffer  the  other  death, 
as  they  call  it,  when  it  perishes  utterly,  and  nothing  is  left. 
And  this  is  to  them  the  most  wretched  fate  ;  and  therefore  the 
survivors,  for  these  five  days  or  more,  must  abstain  from  certain 
food,  and  all  noisy  work  except  their  necessary  fishing,  that  the 
soul  on  its  dangerous  journey  may  not  be  disturbed  or  come  to 
harm.1  But  perhaps  no  story  on  record  so  clearly  shows  how 
deeply  the  idea  of  these  imaginary  ties  is  rooted  in  the  savage 
mind,  as  one  told  by  Mr.  Wallace  in  his  South  American  tour : — 
"  An  Indian,  who  was  one  of  my  hunters,  caught  a  fine  cock  of 
the  rock,  and  gave  it  to  his  wife  to  feed ;  but  the  poor  woman 
was  obliged  to  live  herself  on  cassava-bread  and  fruits,  and 
abstain  entirely  from  all  animal  food,  pepper,  and  salt,  which  it 
was  believed  would  cause  the  bird  to  die."  The  bird  died  after 
all,  and  the  woman  was  beaten  by  her  husband  for  having  killed 
it  by  some  violation  of  the  rule  of  abstinence.2 

An  attempt  to  account  for  the  couvade  has  been  made  by 
Bachofen,  in  his  remarkable  treatise  on  that  early  stage  of  society 
when  the  rule  of  kinship  on  the  mother's  side  prevailed,  which  in 
the  course  of  ages  has  been  generally  superseded  by  the  opposite 
rule  of  kinship  on  the  father's  side.  The  couvade,  in  his  view, 
belonged  to  the  period  of  this  great  social  change,  being  a  sym- 
bolic act  performed  by  the  father  for  the  purpose  of  taking  on 
himself  the  parental  relation  to  the  child  which  had  been  pre- 
viously held  by  the  mother.  If,  however,  we  look  closely  at  the 
details  of  the  practice  among  American  tribes,  who  seem  to  have 
it  near  the  original  state,  we  shall  hardly  find  them  fit  with 
such  a  theory.  Cases  like  that  of  the  Greenlanders,  where  both 

1  Crauz,  pp.  275,  258. 

'2  "\Vallace,  p.  502.     For  other  connected  practices,  see  p.  501.     Spix  and  Martius, 

pp.  ysi,  use. 


298  SOME  REMARKABLE   CUSTOMS. 

the  husband  and  the  wife  are  put  under  treatment,  often  appear 
in  South  America.  Among  the  Macusis  of  Guiana,  who  may 
stand  as  the  example,  the  father  after  the  birth  of  the  child 
hangs  up  his  hammock  beside  the  mother's,  and  keeps  with  her 
the  weeks  of  seclusion.  During  this  time,  neither  husband  nor 
wife  do  any  work ;  he  may  not  bathe  nor  take  his  weapons 
in  hand  ;  both  may  only  quench  their  thirst  with  lukewarm 
water,  and  eat  cassava-porridge ;  they  are  even  forbidden  to 
scratch  themselves  with  their  nails,  a  bit  of  rib  of  palni-lt-af 
being  hung  up  to  use  instead.  The  transgression  of  these 
ordinances  would  cause  death  or  lifelong  sickness  to  the  child. 
All  this  agrees  perfectly  with  the  couvade  being  sympathetic 
magic,  but  there  is  no  transfer  of  parentage  from  the  mother  to 
the  father.  Still  more  adverse  to  Bachofen's  notion,  is  the  fact 
that  these  Macusis,  so  far  from  reckoning  the  parentage  as  having 
been  transferred  to  the  father  by  the  couvade,  are  actually  among 
the  tribes  who  do  not  reckon  kinship  on  the  father's  side,  the 
child  belonging  to  the  mother's  clan.  So  among  the  Arawacs, 
though  the  father  performs  the  couvade,  this  does  not  interfere 
with  the  rule  that  kinship  poes  by  the  mother.  Xor  is  there 
much  in  these  practices  which  can  be  construed  as  a  pretence  of 
maternity  made  by  the  father.  What  he  does  is  to  go  through 
a  dietetic  course  for  the  sympathetic  benefit  of  the  child,  and  his 
doing  so  may  naturally  become,  as  is  said  to  be  the  case  among 
the  Mundrucus,  a  legal  symbol,  an  act  of  recognition  on  his  part 
that  he  is  the  father.  To  understand  the  whole  circumstances, 
under  which  the  couvade  is  practised  in  the  world,  it  is  evident 
that  the  original  magical  explanation,  sound  as  it  seems  to  be 
in  itself,  is  incomplete,  and  must  be  supplemented  by  other 
reasons  to  account  for  the  stress  it  often  lays  on  the  paternal, 
rather  than  the  maternal  relation.  It  is  not  impossible  that  in 
such  cases  it  may  have  come  to  serve  in  something  like  the  way 
suggested  by  Bachofen,  as  a  symbol  belonging  to  the  rule  of 
male  kinship.1 

1  The  above  remarks  OD  Bachofen's  views  are  newly  inserted  in  the  pre-ent  edition. 
See  J.  J.  Bachofen,  '  Das  Mutterrecht,'  Stuttgart,  1861,  pp.  17,  'J55,  etc. ;  Martius, 
'  Beitriige  zur  Ethnographic  und  Sprachenkunde  Amerikas,'  vol,  i.  pp  427,  44',  511, 
643,  690;  Sir  E.  Schomburgk,  'Travels  in  British  Guiaua;'  Beruau, 


SOME   REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS.  299 

It  has  further  to  be  noticed  that  certain  forms  of  the  couvade 
involve  actually  giving  over  the  parentage  to  the  father,  and 
leaving  the  mother  out  of  the  question.  This  was  an  ancient 
Egyptian  idea,  as  Southey  points  out  when  mentioning  its  most 
startling  development  in'  the  practice  of  the  Tupinambas  of 
Brazil,  who  would  give  their  own  women  as  wives  to  their  male 
captives,  and  then,  without  scruple,  eat  the  children  when  they 
grow  up,  holding  them  simply  to  be  of  the  flesh  and  blood  of 
their  enemies.  It  is  strange  that  writers  who  have  spoken  of 
the  couvade  during  the  half-century  since  Southey  wrote,  and 
have  even  quoted  him,  should  have  so  neglected  the  contribution 
he  made  to  the  psychology  of  the  lower  races  in  bringing  forward 
as  the  source  of  this  remarkable  practice  at  once  the  Egyptian, 
and  American  theory  of  parentage,  and  the  belief  in  bodily  union 
between  father  and  child.1  Nor  is  the  doctrine  of  special  parent- 
age from  the  father  unknown  to  the  Aryan  race.  We  may  take 
it  up  in  the  Hindu  code  of  Manu,  which  compares  the  mother  to 
the  field  bringing  forth  the  plant  according  to  whatever  seed  is 
sown  in  it.  The  idea  is  conspicuous  in  the  Eunienides  of 
/Eschylus,  where  the  very  plea  of  Orestes  is  that  he  is  not  of 
kin  to  his  mother  Klytemnestra,  and  the  gods  decide  that  she 
who  bears  the  child  is  but  as  a  nurse  to  it.  Lastly,  we  may  leave 
it  in  the  hands  of  Swedenborg,  who  declares  that  the  soul,  which 
is  spiritual  and  is  the  real  man,  is  from  the  father,  while  the 
body,  which  is  natural  and  as  it  were  the  clothing  of  the  soul,  is 
from  the  mother.  Here,  he  tells  us,  we  may  see  the  reason 
why  the  mind  and  disposition  of  the  father  is  communicated  to 
the  children  for  generations.2  Which  seems  a  somewhat  lop- 
sided argument. 

To  trace  now  the  geographical  distribution  of  the  couvade  in 

Guiana,'  p.  29.  For  further  evidence  and  argument  in  support  of  the  sympathetic- 
magical  explanation  of  the  couvade,  see  Bastian's  important  paper  on  Comparative 
Psychology  in  the  '  Zeitschrift  fiir  Yolkerpsychologie,'  vol.  v.  (18*57),  and  the  elaborate 
dissertation  on  the  couvade  in  Ploss,  '  Das  Kind,  in  Branch  und  Sitte  der  Vb'lker,' 
Stuttgart,  1876,  vol.  i.  p.  125,  etc.  [Xote  to  3rd  Edition.] 

1  Diod.  Sic.  i.  80.  Southey,  vol.  i,  pp.  227,  248.  Compare  Spix  and  Martiua, 
p.  1339,  and  Martins,  p.  392. 

-  Mmu,  ix.  31-40.  J.  F.  M'Lennan  in  Fortnightly  Rev.,  Apr.  15,  186tf. 
Swedenborg,  'The  True  Christian  Religion  ;'  103. 


800  SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS. 

other  parts  of  the  world.  The  fasting  observed  in  South  America 
and  the  West  Indies  is  not  general ;  repose,  careful  nursing, 
and  nourishing  food  being  the  treatment  usual  for  the  imaginary 
invalid.  Venegas  mentions  this  kind  of  couvade  anong  the 
Indians  of  California ; l  Zucchelli,  in  West  Africa;2  Captain  Van 
der  Hart,  in  Bouro,  in  the  Eastern  Archipelago.3  The  country 
of  Eastern  Asia  where  Marco  Polo  met  with  the  practice  of  the 
couvade  in  the  thirteenth  century,  appeai-s  to  be  the  Chinese 
province  of  West  Yunnan,4  so  that  the  widow's  remark  to  Sir 
Hudibras  is  true  in  a  geographical  sense, — 

"  For  though  Chineses  go  to  bed, 
And  lie-in  in  their  ladies'  stead." 

But  it  does  not  at  all  follow  from  this  that  the  couvade  was  prac- 
tised among  the  race  ethnologic  ally  known  to  us  as  the  Chinese. 
The  people  among  whom  Marco  Polo  found  it  were  probably  one 
of  the  distinct  and  less  cultured  races  within  the  va,st  Chinese 
frontier,  for  it  has  been  noticed  among  the  mountain  tribes  known 
as  the  Miau-tsze,  or  "  Children  of  the  soil,"  who  differ  from  the 
Chinese  proper  in  body,  language,  and  civilization,  and  are  sup- 
posed to  be,  like  the  Soutals  and  Gonds  of  India,  remnants  of  a 
race  driven  into  the  mountains  by  the  present  dwellers  in  the 
plains.  A  Chinese  traveller  among  the  Miau-tsze,  giving  an 
account  of  their  manners  and  customs,  notices,  as  though  the 
idea  were  quite  strange  to  him,  that  "  In  one  tribe  it  is  the  cus- 
tom for  the  father  of  a  new-born  child,  as  soon  as  its  mother  has 
become  strong  enough  to  leave  her  couch,  to  get  into  bed  him- 
self, and  there  receive  the  congratulations  of  his  acquaintances, 
as  he  exhibits  his  offspring.''5  To  the  districts  mentioned  in 

1  Venegas,  vol.  L  p.  94  ;  Bancroft,  '  Native  Races  of  Pacific  States,'  voL  i.  pp.  391, 
585. 

2  Zucchelli,  p.  165. 

3  C.    v.    der  Hart,    'Reize   rondom   het   eiland  Celebes;'    'Sgravenhage,    1S53, 
p.  137. 

4  Marco  Polo,  Latin  ed.,  1671,  lib.   ii.   c.    xli.     Marsden's  Tr.  ;  London,  1813, 
p.  434. 

*  W.  Lockhart,  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.  1861,  p.  181.  Rochefort  (p.  550)  sets  down  the 
Japanese  as  practising  the  couvade  ;  and  the  same  bare  mention  appears  in  later 
writers,  who,  perhaps,  merely  followed  him.  Is  his  statement  based  en  proper 
evidence,  or  simply  a  mistake  ? 


SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS.  301 

the  first  edition  of  this  work,  I  have  to  add  another,  South  India. 
The  account,  for  which  I  have  to  thank  Mr.  F.  M.  Jennings,  de- 
scribes it  as  usual  among  natives  of  the  higher  castes  about 
Madras,  Seringapatam,  and  on  the  Malabar  Coast.  It  is  stated 
that  a  man,  at  the  birth  of  his  first  son  or  daughter  by  the  chief 
wife,  or  for  any  son  afterwards,  will  retire  to  bed  for  a  lunar 
month,  living  principally  on  a  rice  diet,  abstaining  from  exciting 
food  and  from  smoking ;  at  the  end  of  the  month  he  bathes,  puts 
on  a  fresh  dress,  and  gives  his  friends  a  feast.  The  people  oi 
this  district  of  India  may  be  described  as  mainly  of  the  indi- 
genous Dravidian  stock,  more  or  less  mixed  with  Aryan  Hindu. 
They  are  Hinduized  to  a  great  degree  in  religion  and  habits,  but 
preserve  some  of  their  earlier  customs,  among  which  the  couvade, 
which  is  not  known  as  an  Aryan  Hindu  practice,  must  probably 
be  counted.1  An  ancient  Asiatic  people  recorded  to  have  prac- 
tised the  couvade  are  the  Tibareni  of  Pontus,  at  the  south  of  the 
Black  Sea,  among  whom,  when  the  child  was  born,  the  father  lay 
groaning  in  bed  with  his  head  tied  up,  while  the  mother  tended 
him  with  food,  and  prepared  his  baths.2 

In  Europe,  the  couvade  may  be  traced  up  from  ancient  into 
modern  times  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Pyrenees.  Above 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  Strabo  mentions  the  story  that 
among  the  Iberians  of  the  North  of  Spain  the  women,  "  after 
the  birth  of  a  child,  tend  their  husbands,  putting  them  to  bed 
instead  of  going  themselves  ;  "3  and  this  account  is  confirmed 
by  later  mentions  of  the  practice.  "  In  Biscay,"  says  Michel,4 
"  in  valleys  whose  population  recalls  in  its  usages  the  infancy  of 
society,  the  women  rise  immediately  after  child-birth,  and  attend 
to  the  duties  of  the  household,  while  the  husband  goes  to  bed, 
taking  the  baby  with  him,  and  thus  receives  the  neighbours'  com- 

1  The  details  are  from  a  nurse,  born  of  English  parents  in  India,  and  acquainted 
with  native  habits.      [Note  to  2nd  Edition.  ] 

2  Apoll.  Rhod.  Argonautica,  ii.  1009.     C.  Val.  Place.  Argon.,  v.  148. 

3  Strabo,  iii.  4,  17. 

4  Michel,  '  Le  Pays  Basque  ;'  Paris,  1857,  p.  201.     A.  de  Quatrefages,  in  Rev.  des 
Deux  Mondes,  1850,  vol.  v.     It  is  now  declared  by  Vinson  that  the  couvade  has  not 
been  found  among  the  modern  Basques,  the  allusions  in  writers  of    the  last  two 
centuries   always   referring   to   the    Bearnais.      See   Wentworth   Webster,    '  Basqno 
Legends,'  London,  1877,  p.  232.     [Note  to  3rd  Edition.] 


302  SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS. 

pliments."  It  has  been  found  also  in  Navarre, l  and  on  the 
French  side  of  the  Pyrenees.  Legrand  d'Aussy  mentions  that 
in  an  old  French  fabliau  the  King  of  Torelore  is  "  au  lit  et  en 
couche  "  when  Aucassin  arrives  and  takes  a  stick  to  him,  and 
makes  him  promise  to  abolish  the  custom  in  his  realm.  And 
the  same  author  goes  on  to  say  that  the  practice  is  said  still  to 
exist  in  some  cantons  of  Beam,  where  it  is  called  faire  la  cou- 
vade?  Lastly,  Diodorus  Siculus  notices  the  same  habit  of  the 
wife  being  neglected,  and  the  husband  put  to  bed  and  treated  as 
the  patient,  among  the  natives  of  Corsica  about  the  beginning  of 
the  Christian  era.3 

The  ethnological  value  of  the  four  groups  of  customs  now 
described  is  not  to  be  weighed  with  much  nicety.  The  pro- 
hibitions of  marriage  among  distant  kindred  go  for  least  in 
proving  connexion  by  blood  or  intercourse  between  the  distant 
races  who  practise  them,  as  it  is  easy  to  suppose  them  to  have 
grown  up  again  and  again  from  like  grounds.  But  it  is  hard  to 
suppose  that  the  curiously  similar  restrictions  in  the  intercourse 
between  parents-in-law  and  their  children-in-law  can  be  of  inde- 
pendent growth  in  each  of  the  remote  districts  where  they  pre- 
vail, and  still  more  difficult  to  suppose  the  quaint  trick  of  the 
cure  by  the  pretended  extraction  of  objects  from  the  patient's 
body  to  have  made  its  appearance  independently  in  Africa,  in 
America,  in  Australia,  in  Europe.  In  such  cases  as  these  there 
is  considerable  force  in  the  supposition  of  there  being  often  a 
historical  connexion  between  their  origin  in  different  regions. 
Thus,  the  isolated  occurrences  of  a  custom  among  particular 
races  surrounded  by  other  races  who  ignore  it,  may  be  some- 
times to  the  ethnologist  like  those  outlying  patches  of  strata 
from  which  the  geologist  infers  that  the  formation  they  belong 
to  once  spread  over  intervening  districts,  from  which  it  has  been 
removed  by  denudation ;  or  like  the  geographical  distribution  of 
plants,  from  which  the  botanist  argues  that  they  have  travelled 

1  Laborde,  '  Itineraire  cle  1'Espagne  ;'  Paris,  1834,  vol.  i.  p.  273. 

8  Legrand  d'Aussy,  '  Fabliaux  du  xne  et  xin*  Siecle,'  3rd  ed.  ;  Paris,  1829,  vol.  iii. 
"Aucassin  et  Nicolelte."     Rochefort,  I.  c.  [Faire  la  couvadc,  to  sit  cowring,  or 
skowking  within  doors ;  to  lurke  in  the  campe  when  Gallants  are  at  the  Battell  ; 
(any  way)  to  play  least  in  sight  \Cotgrave).] 
Diod.  Sic.  v.  14. 


SOME   REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS.  303 

from  a  distant  home.  The  way  in  which  the  couvade  appears  in 
the  New  and  Old  "Worlds  is  especially  interesting  from  this 
point  of  view.  Among  the  savage  tribes  of  South  America  it  is, 
as  it  were,  at  home  in  a  mental  atmosphere  at  least  not  so  dif- 
ferent from  that  in  which  it  came  into  being  as  to  make  it  a 
mere  meaningless,  absurd  superstition.  If  the  culture  of  tb.3 
Caribs  and  Brazilians,  even  before  they  came  under  our  know- 
ledge, had  advanced  too  far  to  allow  the  couvade  to  grow  up 
fresh  among  them,  they  at  least  practised  it  with  some  con- 
sciousness of  its  meaning ;  it  had  not  fallen  out  of  unison  with 
their  mental  state.  Here,  then,  we  find  covering  a  vast  com- 
pact area  of  country,  the  mental  stratum,  so  to  speak,  to  which 
the  couvade  most  nearly  belongs.  But  if  we  look  at  its  ap- 
pearances across  from  China  to  Corsica,  the  state  of  things  is 
widely  different ;  no  theory  of  its  origin  can  be  drawn  from 
the  Asiatic  and  European  accounts  to  compete  for  a  moment 
with  that  which  flows  naturally  from  the  observations  of  the 
American  missionaries,  who  found  it  not  a  mere  dead  custom, 
but  a  live  growth  of  savage  psj'chology.  The  peoples,  too,  who 
have  kept  it  up  in  Asia  and  Europe  seem  to  have  been  not  the 
great  progressive,  spreading,  conquering,  civilizing  nations  of 
thi'  Aryan,  Semitic,  and  Chinese  stocks.  It  cannot  be  ascribed 
even  to  the  Tatars,  for  the  Lapps,  Finns,  and  Hungarians 
appear  to  know  nothing  of  it.  It  would  seem  rather  to  have 
belonged  to  that  ruder  population,  or  series  of  populations, 
whose  fate  it  has  been  to  be  amalgamated  with  and  shaped  by 
the  stronger  races,  or  driven  from  their  fruitful  lands  to  take 
refuge  in  mountains  and  deserts.  The  retainers  of  the  couvado 
in  Asia  are  the  Miau-tsze  of  China,  the  Hiuduized  people  of 
Southern  India,  and  the  savage  Tibareni  of  Pontus.  In  Europe, 
they  are  the  inhabitants  of  districts  near  the  Pyrenees,  a  region 
into  which  the  Basques  seem  to  have  been  driven  westward  and 
westward  by  the  pressure  of  more  powerful  tribes,  till  they  came 
to  these  last  mountains  with  nothing  but  the  Atlantic  beyond. 
Of  what  stock  were  the  original  barbarian  inhabitants  of  Corsica, 
we  do  not  know ;  but  their  position,  and  the  fact  that  they,  too, 
had  the  couvade,  would  fit  with  an  idea  not  unknown  to  ethno- 
logists, of  their  having  been  a  branch  of  the  same  family,  who 


304  SOME  REMARKABLE  CUSTOMS. 

escaped  their  persecutors  by  putting  out  to  sea,  and  settling  in 
their  mountainous  island. 

When  we  find  such  a  custom  as  the  couvade  lying  isolated  in 
several  districts  of  a  continent,  it  is  useful  thus  to  suggest  its 
perhaps  serving  as  a  clue  to  some  past  connexion  between  tribes 
who  practise  it.  But  this  is  very  different  from  rashly  assuming 
that  it  must  necessarily  be  proof  of  such  historical  connexion, 
that  for  instance  the  ancient  Corsicans  and  Tibareni  and  the 
modern  Bearnese  and  Miau-Tsze  must  somehow  have  borrowed 
or  inherited  the  habit  from  a  common  source.  Again,  it  has 
been  seen  that  most  various  races  of  mankind,  black,  brown, 
yellow,  white,  have  among  them  peoples  who  practise  the  couvade 
in  one  or  other  of  its  forms.  It  would  be  most  unreasonable  to 
attempt  to  give  an  acquired  custom  like  this  any  direct  bearing 
on  the  argument  as  to  a  common  descent  of  these  races  from  one . 
original  stock,  a  problem  which  has  to  be  worked  out  on  more 
deep-lying  and  primitive  characters  of  man's  bodily  and  mental 
structure.  Like  other  magical  fancies,  the  couvade  seems  to 
belong  to  certain  low  stages  of  the  reasoning  process  in  the 
human  mind,  and  may  for  all  we  know  have  sprung  up  at 
different  times  and  places. 

Since  the  first  publication  of  this  work,  the  curious  fact  has 
been  noticed  that  in  Germany  a  group  of  peasant  superstitions 
have  made  their  appearance,  closely  analogous  in  principle  to 
the  couvade,  though  relating  not  to  the  actual  parents  of  the 
child  but  to  the  godparents.  It  is  believed  that  the  habits  and 
proceedings  of  the  godfather  and  godmother  affect  the  child's 
life  and  character.  Particularly,  the  godfather  at  the  christening 
must  not  think  of  disease  or  madness  lest  this  come  upon  the 
child;  he  must  not  look  round  on  the  way  to  the  church  lest  the 
child  should  grow  up  an  idle  stare-about ;  nor  must  he  carry  a 
knife  about  him,  for  fear  of  making  the  child  a  suicide ;  the 
godmother  must  put  on  a  clean  shift  to  go  to  the  baptism,  or 
the  baby  will  grow  up  untidy,  &c.  &c.  It  does  not  seem  im- 
possible for  us  to  enter  into  the  train  of  thought  that  set  these 
notions  going,  they  are  what  might  arise  from  exaggerating  into 
magical  sympathy  the  reasonable  thought  that  such  as  the 
godfather  is,  such  the  godchild  is  likely  to  be.  Popular  magic 


SOME  REMARKABLE   CUSTOMS.  305 

is  one  of  the  subjects  in  which  the  intellect  of  the  peasant  is 
least  removed  from  that  of  the  savage,  both  representing  early 
stages  in  the  development  of  mind.1 

1  The  above  paragraph,  now  first  inserted,  will  serve  to  remove  a  misapprehension 
which  I  notice  in  Sir  John  Lubbock's  '  Origin  of  Civilization,'  chap,  i.,  where  he 
mentions  me  as  "regarding  it  (the  couvade)  as  evidence  that  the  races  by  whom  it 
is  practised  belong  to  one  variety  of  the  human  species."  Some  want  of  clearness  in 
my  remarks  must  have  led  him  to  read  them  in  a  sense  so  wide  of  their  intention. 
For  particulars  of  the  German  superstition  as  to  godfathers  and  godchildren,  see 
Wuttke,  'Deutsche  Yolksaberglaube, '  2nd  edition,  Berlin,  1868,  p.  364;  their 
analogy  with  the  couvade  was  pointed  out  by  Bastian  in  the  paper  already  referred  to. 
[Note  to  3rd  Edition.] 


CHAPTER    XL 

HISTORICAL    TRADITION'S    AND    MYTHS    OF    OBSERVATION. 

THE  traditions  current  among  mankind  are  partly  historical 
and  partly  mythical.  To  the  ethnologist  they  are  of  value  in 
two  very  different  ways,  sometimes  as  preserving  the  memory  of 
past  events,  sometimes  as  showing  by  their  occurrence  in 
different  districts  of  the  world  that  between  the  inhabitants  of 
these  districts  there  has  been  in  some  way  a  historical  con- 
nexion. His  great  difficulty  in  dealing  with  them  is  to  sepa- 
rate the  fact  and  the  fiction,  which  are  both  so  valuable  in  their 
different  ways  :  and  this  difficulty  is  aggravate  d  by  the  circum- 
stance that  these  two  elements  are  often  mixed  up  in  a  most 
complex  manner,  myths  presenting  themselves  in  the  dress  of 
historical  narrative,  and  historical  facts  growing  into  the  wildest 
myths. 

Between  the  traditions  of  real  events,  which  are  History, 
and  th2  pure  myths,  whose  origin  and  development  are  being 
brought  more  and  more  clearly  into  view  in  our  own  times 
by  the  labours  of  Adalbert  Kuhn  and  Max  Miiller,  and  their 
school,  there  lie  a  mass  of  stories  which  may  be  called  "  Myths 
of  Observation."  They  are  inferences  from  observed  facts, 
which  take  the  form  of  positive  assertions,  and  they  differ 
principally  from  the  inductions  of  modern  science  in  be  ng 
much  more  generally  crude  and  erroneous,  and  in  taking  to 
themselves  names  of  persons,  and  more  or  less  of  purely  sub- 
jective detail,  which  enables  them  to  assume  the  appearance  of 
real  history.  When  a  savage  builds  upon  the  discovery  of  great 
bones  buried  in  the  earth  a  story  of  a  combat  of  the  giants  and 
monsters  whose  remains  they  are,  he  constructs  a  Myth  of  Ob- 
servation which  may  shapa  itself  into  the  form  of  a  historical 


HISTORICAL   TRADITIONS   AXD   MYTHS   OF  OBSERVATION.      307 

tradition,  and  be  all  the  more  puzzling  for  the  portion  of  scien- 
tific truth  which  it  really  con'ains.  The  object  of  the  present 
chapter  is  to  collect  a  quantity  of  evidence,  bearing  on  the 
problem  how  to  separate  Historical  Traditions  and  Myths  of 
Observation  from  pure  Myths,  and  from  one  another. 

Though  it  may  not  be  possible  to  lay  down  any  general  canon 
of  criticism  by  which  the  historical  and  mythical  elements  of 
tradition  may  be  separated,  it  is  to  some  extent  possible  to  judge 
by  internal  evidence  whether  or  not  a  particular  legend  or 
episode  has  a  claim  to  be  considered  as  history.  It  happens 
sometimes  that  a  legend  contains  statements  which  are  hardly 
likely  to  have  come  into  the  minds  of  the  original  D  irrators  of 
the  story,  except  by  actual  experience.  The  Chinase  legend 
which  tells  us  the  name  of  the  ancient  sage  whc  «aught  his 
people  to  make  fire  by  the  friction  of  wood  cannot  be  taken  as  it 
stands  for  real  history,  seeing  that  so  many  nations  ascribe  this 
and  other  arts  to  mythic  heroes,  yet  it  embodies  a  re^ol'ection  of 
a  time  when  this  was  the  ordinary  way  of  producing  fire.  So, 
when  the  same  people  tell  us  that  they  once  used  knotted  cords 
like  the  Peruvian  quipus,  as  reco  -ds  of  events,  and  that  the  art 
of  writing  superseded  this  ruder  expedient,  we  are  in  no  way 
called  upon  to  receive  the  names  and  dates  of  the  inventors  to 
whom  they  as  ribe  these  arts;  but,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  hard 
to  imagine1  what  could  have  put  such  an  idea  into  their  heads, 
unless  there  had  been  a  foundation  of  fact  for  the  story,  in  the 
actual  use  of  quipus  in  the  country  before  writing  became 
general. 

In  the  traditions  which  the  Polynesians  have  preserved  of 
their  migrations  in  past  times,  it  is  likely  that  some  historic 
truth  may  be  preserved,  and  with  their  help,  aided  by  a  closer 
study  of  the  languages  and  myths  of  the  district,  it  may  be  some 
day  possible  for  ethnologists  to  sketch  out,  at  least  roughly,  the 
history  of  the  race  for  ages  bef  re  the  European  discovery. 
Much  of  the  historical  value  of  the  South  Sea  traditions  is  due 
to  their  being  commonly  preserved  in  verses,  kept  alive  by  fre- 
quent repetition,  and  in  which  even  small  events  are  placed  on 
record  with  an  accuracy  and  permanence  that  yields  only  to 
written  history.  Thus  a  question  that  arose  when  Ellis  was  in 

x  2 


SOS      HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND   MYTHS   OF  OBSERVATION. 

Tahiti,  about  a  certain  buoy  that  was  stolen  from  the  '  Bounty ' 
nearly  thirty  years  before,  was  settled  at  once  by  a  couple  of 
lines  from  a  native  song, 

"  O  mea  eia  e  Taren  eii 
Eia  te  poito  a  Bligh." 

"  Such  a  one  a  thief,  and  Tareu  a  thief, 
Stole  the  buoy  of  Bligh."1 

Among  the  mass  of  Central  American  traditions  which  have 
become  known  through  the  labours  of  the  Abbe  Brasseur,  there 
occur  certain  passages  in  the  story  of  an  early  migration  of  the 
Quiche  race,  which  have  much  the  appearance  of  vague  ;md 
broken  stories  derived  in  some  way  from  high  northern  lati- 
tudes. The  Quiche  manuscript  describes  the  ancestors  of  the 
race  as  travelling  away  from  the  rising  of  the  sun,  and  goes  on 
thus : — "  But  it  is  not  clear  how  they  crossed  the  sea,  they 
passed  as  though  there  had  been  no  sea,  for  they  passed  over 
scattered  rocks,  and  these  rocks  were  rolled  on  the  sands.  This 
is  why  they  called  the  place  '  ranged  stones  and  torn  up  sands,' 
the  name  which  they  gave  it  on  their  passage  within  the  sea,  the 
water  being  divided  when  they  passed."  Then  the  people  col- 
lected en  a  mountain  called  Chi  Pixab,  and  there  they  fasted  in 
darkness  and  night.  Afterwards  it  is  related  that  they  removed, 
and  waited  for  the  dawn  which  was  approaching,  and  the  manu- 
script says  : — "  Now,  behold,  our  ancients  and  our  fathers  were 
made  lords  and  had  their  dawn ;  behold,  we  will  relate  also  the 
rising  of  the  dawn  and  the  apparition  of  the  sun,  the  moon,  and 
the  stars."  Great  was  their  joy  when  they  saw  the  morning 
star,  which  came  out  first  with  its  resplendent  face  before  the 
sun.  At  last  the  sun  itself  began  to  come  forth  ;  the  animals, 
small  and  great,  were  in  joy ;  they  rose  from  the  watercourses 
and  ravines,  and  stood  on  the  mountain  tops  with  their  heads 
towards  where  the  sun  was  coming.  An  innumerable  crowd  of 
people  were  there,  and  the  dawn  cast  light  on  all  these  nations 
at  once.  "  At  last  the  face  of  the  ground  was  dried  by  the  sun  : 
like  a  man  the  sun  showed  himself,  and  his  presence  wanned 
and  dried  the  surface  of  the  ground.  Before  the  sun  appeared, 

1  Ellis,  Polyn.  Ees.,  vol.  L  p.  237. 


HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS   AND   MYTHS   OF  OBSERVATION.      309 

muddy  and  wet  was  the  surface  of  the  ground,  and  it  was  before 
the  sun  appeared,  and  then  only  the  sun  rose  like  a  man.  But 
his  heat  had  no  strength,  and  he  did  but  show  himself  when  he 
rose,  he  only  remained  like  (an  image  in)  a  mirror,  and  it  is 
not  indeed  the  same  sun  that  appears  now,  they  say  in  the 
stories."1 

Obscure  as  much  of  this  is,  there  are  things  in  it  which  agree 
very  curiously  with  the  phenomena  of  the  Arctic  regions.  The 
cold  and  darkness,  the  sea  not  like  a  sea  but  like  rocks  rolled  on 
the  sand,  the  long  waiting  for  the  sun,  and  its  appearance  at  last 
with  little  strength,  and  but  just  rising  above  the  horizon,  form 
a  picture  which  corresponds  with  the  nature  of  the  high  north, 
as  much  as  it  differs  from  that  of  the  tropical  regions  where  the 
tradition  is  found.  We  read  of  the  people  of  Thule  of  old,  after 
their  35-day  night,  climbing  hills  to  look  out  for  the  returning  sun, 
as  in  more  modern  times  of  Arctic  voyagers  going  out  to  watch 
for  the  sun  towards  the  close  of  the  long  dismal  winter.2  The 
judgment  that  it  was  not  indeed  the  sun  of  Central  America 
(hat  appeared  so  strangely,  may  be  placed  by  the  side  of  a 
remark  made  by  a  savage  in  another  country.  Sir  George  Grey, 
travelling  in  Australia,  was  once  telling  stories  of  distant  coun- 
tries to  a  party  of  natives  round  the  camp  fire  ;  "I  now  spoke 
to  them  of  still  more  northern  latitudes  ;  and  went  so  far  as 
to  describe  those  countries  in  which  the  sun  never  sets  at  a 
certain  period  of  the  year.  Their  astonishment  now  knew  no 
bounds  :  '  Ah !  that  must  be  another  sun,  not  the  same  as  the 
one  we  see  here,'  said  an  old  man ;  and  in  spite  of  all  my  argu- 
ments to  the  contrary,  the  others  adopted  this  opinion."3 

The  legend  of  the  introduction  of  rice  in  Borneo  relates  how  a 
Dayak  climbed  up  a  tree  which  grew  downward  from  the  sky, 
and  so  got  up  to  the  Pleiades,  and  there  he  found  a  personage 
who  took  him  to  his  house  and  gave  him  boiled  rice  to  eat.  He 
had  never  seen  rice  before,  and  the  story  says  that  when  he  saw 
the  grains,  he  thought  they  were  maggots.4  Now  there  is  a 

1  Brasseur,  'Popol  Vuh,'  pp.  231-43  ;  '  Mexique,'  vol.  i.  pp.  169-73. 

2  Procopius,  ii.  206  ;  Purchas,  vol.  iii.  p.  499. 
8  Grey,  Journals,  vol.  i.  p.  293. 

4  St.  John,  vol.  i.  p.  202,  and  see  under  Chap.  XIL 


310      HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND   MYTHS  OF   OBSERVATION. 

tradition  of  recent  date,  among  the  Keethratlah  Indians  of 
British  Columbia,  which  tells  in  the  most  graphic  way  the  story 
of  the  first  appearance  of  the  white  men  among  them ;  how  an 
Indian  canoe  was  out  catching  halibut,  when  the  noise  of  a  huge 
sea-monster  was  heard,  plunging  along  through  the  thick  mist ; 
the  Indians  drew  up  their  lines  and  paddled  to  shore,  when  the 
monster  proved  to  be  a  boat  full  of  strange-looking  men.  "  The 
strangers  landed,  and  beckoned  the  Indians  to  come  to  them  and 
brincr  them  some  tish.  One  of  them  had  over  his  shoulder  what 

O 

was  supposed  to  be  a  stick  ;  presently  he  pointed  it  to  a  bird  that 
was  flying  past — a  violent  poo  went  forth — down  came  the  bird 
to  the  ground.  The  Indians  died  !  As  they  revived,  they  ques- 
tioned each  other  as  to  their  state,  whether  any  were  dead,  and 
what  each  had  felt.  The  whites  then  made  signs  for  a  fire  to  be 
lighted ;  the  Indians  proceeded  at  once,  according  to  their 
usual  tedious  practice,  of  rubbing  two  sticks  together.  The 
strangers  laughed,  and  one  of  them,  snatching  up  a  handful  of 
dry  grass,  struck  a  spark  into  a  little  powder  placed  under  it. 
Instantly  another  poo  ! — and  a  blaze.  The  Indians  died ! 
After  this  the  new-comers  wanted  some  fish  boiled :  the  Indians, 
therefore,  put  the  fish  and  water  into  one  of  their  square  wooden 
buckets,  and  set  some  stones  on  the  fire ;  intending,  when  they 
were  hot,  to  cast  them  into  the  vessel,  and  thus  boil  the  food. 
The  whites  were  not  satisfied  with  this  way :  one  of  them 
fetched  a  tin  kettle  out  of  the  boat,  put  the  fish  and  some  water 
into  it,  and  then,  strange  to  say,  set  it  on  the  fire.  The  Indians 
looked  on  with  astonishment.  However,  the  kettle  did  not  con- 
sume ;  the  water  did  not  run  into  the  fire.  Then,  again,  tha 
Indians  died !  When  the  fish  was  eaten,  the  strangers  put  a 
kettle  of  rice  on  the  fire  ;  the  Indians  looked  at  each  other,  and 
whispered  Akshahn,  akshahn  !  or  '  Maggots,  maggots  !  '  " l 

Again,  the  Australians  have  had  the  same  idea  of  what  rice 
was,  for  in  the  Moorunde  dialect  it  is  called  "  yeelilee,"  or 
"maggots,"2  a  name  which,  of  course,  dates  from  the  recent 
time  when  foreigners  brought  it  to  the  country.  When,  there- 
fore, we  are  told  in  the  Borneo  tale  that  the  first  Dayak  who 
saw  grains  of  rice  took  them  for  maggots,  we  are,  I  think,  justi- 
'  British  Columbia,'  p.  279.  a  Eyre,  vol.  ii.  p.  393. 


HISTORICAL   TRADITIONS   AND   MYTHS   OF   OBSERVATION.      311 

fied  in  believing  this  notion  to  be  in  Borneo,  as  elsewhere,  a  real 
reminiscence  of  the  introduction  of  rice  into  the  country,  though 
this  piece  of  actual  history  comes  to  us  woven  into  the  texture 
of  an  ancient  myth.  There  is  reason  to  suppose  that  rice  was 
introduced  into  the  Malay  islands  from  Asia ;  in  Marsden's  time 
it  had  not  been  adopted  even  in  Engano  and  Batu,  which  are 
islands  close  to  Sumatra.1 

When  a  tradition  is  once  firmly  planted  among  the  legendary 
lore  of  a  tribe,  there  seems  scarcely  any  limit  to  the  time  through 
which  it  may  be  kept  up  by  continual  repetition  from  one  gene- 
ration to  the  next ;  unless  such  an  event  as  the  coming  of  a 
stronger  and  more  highly  cultivated  race  'entirely  upsets  the  old 
state  of  society,  and  destroys  the  old  landmarks.  The  tradi- 
tions of  the  Polynesians,  for  instance,  seem  often  to  be  of  great 
age,  for  they  occur  among  the  natives  of  distant  islands  whose 
languages  have  had  time  to  diverge  wddely  from  a  common 
origin  ;  but  even  the  most  long-lived  stories  are  fast  disappear- 
ing, under  European  influence,  from  the  memory  of  the  people. 
The  historical  value  of  a  tradition  does  not  of  necessity  vary 
inversely  with  its  age,  and  indeed  this  rule-of-three  test  goes 
for  very  little,  for  some  very  old  stories  are,  beyond  a  doubt,  of 
greater  historical  value  than  other  very  new  ones  current  in  the 
same  tribe. 

There  is  even  a  certain  amount  of  evidence  which  tends  to 
prove  that  the  memory  of  the  huge  animals  of  the  quaternary 
period  has  been  preserved  up  to  modern  times  in  popular  tra- 
dition. It  is  but  quite  lately  that  the  fact  of  man  having  lived 
on  the  earth  at  the  same  time  with  the  mammoth  has  become  a 
generally  received  opinion,  though  its  probability  has  been  seen 
by  a  few  far- sigh  ted  thinkers  for  many  years  past,  and  it  had 
been  suggested  long  before  the  late  discoveries  in  the  Drift-beds, 
that  several  traditions,  found  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  were 
derived  from  actual  memory  of  the  remote  time  when  various 
great  animals,  generally  thought  to  have  died  out  before  the 
appearance  of  man  upon  the  earth,  were  still  alive.  The  subject, 
is  hardly  in  a  state  to  express  a  decided  opinion  upon,  but  the 
evidence  is  worthy  of  the  most  careful  attention. 

1  Marsden,  pp.  4G7,  474.     See  Ellis,  'Madagascar,'  vol.  i.  p.  39. 


312      HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS   OF  OBSERVATION. 

Father  Charlevoix,  whose  '  History  of  New  France  '  was  pub- 
lished in  1744,  records  a  North  American  legend  of  a  great  elk. 
"  There  is  current  also  among  these  barbarians  a  pleasant  enough 
tradition  of  a  great  Elk,  beside  whom  others  seem  like  ants. 
He  has,  they  say,  legs  so  high  that  eight  feet  of  snow  do  not 
embarrass  him  :  his  skin  is  proof  against  all  sorts  of  weapons, 
and  he  has  a  sort  of  arm  which  comes  out  of  his  shoulder,  and 
which  he  uses  as  we  do  ours."1  It  is  hard  to  imagine  that  any- 
thing but  the  actual  sight  of  a  live  elephant  can  have  given  rise 
to  this  tradition.  The  suggestion  that  it  might  have  been 
founded  on  the  sight  of  a  mammoth  frozen  with  his  flesh  and 
skin,  as  they  are  found  in  Siberia,  is  not  tenable,  for  the  trunks 
and  tails  of  these  animals  perish  first,  and  are  not  preserved  like 
the  more  solid  parts,  so  that  the  Asiatic  myths  which  have 
grown  out  of  the  finding  of  these  frozen  beasts,  know  nothing  of 
such  appendages.  Moreover,  no  savage  who  had  never  heard  of 
the  use  of  an  elephant's  trunk  would  imagine  from  a  sight  of 
the  dead  animal,  even  if  its  trunk  were  perfect,  that  its  use  was 
to  be  compared  with  that  of  a  man's  arm. 

The  notion  that  the  Indian  story  of  the  Great  Elk  was  a  real  re- 
miniscence of  a  living  proboscidian,  is  strengthened  by  a  remark- 
able drawing,  Fig.  30,  from  one  of  the  Mexican  picture-writings. 
It  represents  a  masked  priest  sacrificing  a  human  victim,  and 
Humboldt  copies  it  in  the  '  Vues  des  Cordilleres'  with  the  follow- 
ing remarks : — I  should  not  have  had  this  hideous  scene  engraved, 
were  it  not  that  the  disguise  of  the  sacrificing  priest  presents 
some  remarkable  and  apparently  not  accidental  resemblance  with 
the  Hindoo  Ganesa  [the  elephant-headed  god  of  wisdom] .  The 
Mexicans  used  masks  imitating  the  shape  of  the  heads  of  the 
serpent,  the  crocodile,  or  the  jaguar.  One  seems  to  recognize 
in  the  sacrificer's  mask  the  trunk  of  an  elephant  or  some  pachy- 
derm resembling  it  in  the  shape  of  the  head,  but  with  an  upper 
jaw  furnished  with  incisive  teeth.  The  snout  of  the  tapir  no 
doubt  protrudes  a  little  more  than  that  of  our  pigs,  but  it  is  a 
long  way  from  the  tapir's  snout  to  the  trunk  figured  in  the 
'  Codex  Borgianus.'  Had  the  peoples  of  Aztlan  derived  from 
Asia  some  vague  notions  of  the  elephant,  or,  as  seems  to  me 

1  Charlevoix,  vol.  v.  p.  187. 


HISTORICAL   TRADITIONS   AND   MYTHS   OF  OESERYATION.      313 

much  less  probable,  did  their  traditions  reach  back  to  the  time 
when  America  was  still  inhabited  by  these  gigantic  animals, 
whose  petrified  skeletons  are  found  buried  in  the  marly  ground 
on  the  very  ridge  of  the  Mexican  Cordilleras  ?  " 1  It  may  be 


Fig.  30. 

worth  while  to  notice  in  connexion  with  Humboldt's  remarks, 
that  when  Mr.  Bates  showed  a  picture  of  an  elephant  to  some 
South  American  Indians,  they  settled  it  that  the  creature  must 
be  a  large  kind  of  tapir.2 

Attempts  have  been  made  by  other  writers  to  connect  the 
memory  of  animals  now  extinct,  with  mythological  tales  current 
in  the  regions  to  which  they  belong.  Dr.  Falconer  is  disposed 
to  connect  the  huge  elephant-fighting  and  world-bearing  tortoises 
of  the  Hindoo  mythology  with  a  recollection  of  the  time  when 
his  monstrous  Himalayan  tortoise,  the  Colossochelys  Atlas,  the 
restoration  of  which  forms  so  striking  an  object  in  the  British 
Museum,  was  still  alive.3  The  savage  tribes  of  Brazil  have 
traditions  about  a  being  whom  they  call  the  Curupira.  Some- 
times he  is  described  as  a  kind  of  orang-utan,  being  covered 
with  long,  shaggy  hair,  a  d  living  in  trees.  At  others  he  is 
said  to  have  cloven  feet,  and  a  bright  red  face.  He  has  a  wife 

1  Humboldt,  Yues  des  Cord.,  pi.  xv.  ;  Borgia  MS.  in  Kingshorough,  vol.  iii. 

*  Bates,  '  Amazons,' vol.  ii.  p.  128. 

*  Falconer,  '  Palasontological  Memoirs,'  London,  1863,  vol.  i.  p.  375. 


314      HISTORIC1  AL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS  OF   OBSERVATION. 

t 

and  children,  and  sometimes  comes  down  to  the  rocas  to  steal 
the  mandioca."  Similar  to,  or  the  same  as  this  being,  is  the 
Caypcr,  whom  the  Indians,  in  their  masquerades,  represent  us 
a  bulky,  misshapen  monster,  with  red  skin  and  long  shaggy  red 
hair,  hanging  hallway  down  his  back.1  With  reference  to  these 
Brazilian  stories,  Mr.  Carter  Blake  remarks — "  In  Brazil  the 
Indians  had  a  tradition  of  a  gigantic  anthropoid  ape,  the  caypore, 
which  represented  the  African  gorilla.  No  such  ape  exists  in 
the  present  day ;  but  in  the  post-pliocene  in  Brazil,  remains 
have  been  preserved  of  an  extinct  ape  (ProtopitJiecns  antiquus) 
four  feet  high,  which  might  possibly  have  lived  down  to  the 
human  period,  and  formed  the  subject  of  the  tradition."1 
Lastly,  Colonel  Hamilton  Smith  has  collected  a  quantity  of 
evidence,  thought  by  him  to  bear  on  the  preservation  of  the 
memory  of  extinct  creatures,  adding  to  Father  Charlevoix's  great 
Elk,  and  the  Pere  aux  Bceufs  from  Buffon,  a  North  American 
''Naked  Bear,"  and  an  East  Indian  "Elephant-Horse,"  etc., 
and  endeavouring  to  identify  them  in  nature.3 

To  proceed  now  from  the  traditions  which  have,  or  may  set 
up  some  sort  of  claim  to  have,  a  historical  foundation,  to  the 
Myths  of  Observation,  which  are  so  often  liable  to  be  confounded 
with  them  :  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  if  the  inference  from  facts, 
which  forms  the  basis  of  such  a  myth,  should  happen  to  be  a 
correct  one,  and  if  the  story  should  also  happen  to  have  fairly 
dropped  out  of  sight  the  evidence  out  of  which  it  grew,  its 
separation  from  a  real  tradition  of  events  may  be  hardly  possible. 
Fortunately  for  the  Ethnologist,  it  is  very  common  for  such 
stories  to  betray  their  unhistoric  origin  in  one  or  both  of  these 
ways,  either  by  recording  things  which  seemed  indeed  probable 
when  the  myths  arose,  but  which  modern  knowledge  repudiates, 
or  by  having  embodied  with  them  the  facts  which  have  been 
appealed  to  for  ages  as  confirmation  of  their  truth,  but  which 
we  are  now  in  a  position  to  recognize  at  once  as  the  very  basis 
on  which  their  mythical  structure  was  raised. 

A  good  example  of  a  Myth  of  Observation  is  a  story  current 

1  Bates,  'Amazons,'  vol.  i.  p.  73;  vol.  ii.  p.  204. 
8  C.  Carter  Blake  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc.  1863,  p.  169. 
C.  Hamilton  Mnitb,  Nat.  Hist  of  Human  Sp  ,  pp.  10i-6. 


HISTORICAL   TRADITIONS   AND   MYTHS   OF   OBSERVATION.      315 

in  Egypt  in  Strabo's  time,  but  which  he,  having  indeed  a  con- 
siderable knowledge  of  geology,  declines  to  believe.  "But  one 
of  the  wondrous  things,"  he  says,  "  which  we  saw  about  the 
pyramids,  must  not  be  passed  over.  There  He  in  front  of  the 
pyramids  certain  heaps  of  the  masons'  rubbish,  and  among  these 
there  are  found  pieces  in  shape  and  size  like  lentils,  and  in  some, 
as  it  were,  half-peeled  grains.  They  say,  the  leavings  of  the 
workmen's  food  have  been  turned  into  stone,  but  this  is  not 
likely,  for  at  home  among  us  there  is  a  longish  ridge  of  hill  in  a 
plain,  and  this  is  full  of  lentil-like  stones  of  tufa, -etc."1 

To  men  whose  country  has  the  open  sea  to  its  west  it  seems 
that  the  sun  plunges  at  night  into  its  waters.  Now  the  sun  is 
evidently  a  mass  of  matter  at  a  distance,  and  very  hot,  and  when 
red-hot  bodies  come  in  contact  with  water  there  follows  a  hissing 
noise ;  and  thus  the  inference  is  easy  and  straightforward,  that 
when  the  sun  dips  into  the  waves  such  a  sound  ought  to  be 
heard.  From  the  inference  that  the  hissing  might  be  heard,  to 
the  assertion  that  it  has  actually  been  heard,  is  the  easy  step  by 
which  the  crude  argument  of  early  science  passes  into  the  full- 
grown  Myth  of  Observation.  In  two  distant  countries  where 
the  world  seems  to  end  westward  in  the  boundless  ocean,  the 
story  is  to  be  found.  The  Sacred  Promontory,  that  is  Cape  St. 
Vincent,  Strabo  says,  is  the  westernmost  point,  not  of  Europe 
alone,  but  of  the  whole  habitable  earth,  and  there  Posidonius 
tells  how  the  vulgar  say  the  sun  goes  down  larger  on  the  ocean- 
coast,  and  with  a  noise  almost  as  it  were  the  sea  hissing  as  the 
sun  plunges  into  its  depths  and  is  quenched ;  but  this  is  false, 
as  well  as  that  the  night  follows  instantly  upon  its  setting.  So 
in  the  Pacific,  in  some  of  the  Society  Islands,  the  name  for  sun- 
set means  the  falling  of  the  sun  into  the  sea,  and  the  sun  itself 
is  thought  to  be  a  substance  resembling  fire.  Mr.  Ellis  asked 
them  how  they  knew  it  fell  into  the  sea,  and  they  said  they  had 
not  seen  it,  but  some  people  of  Borabora  or  Maupiti,  the  most 
western  islands,  had  once  heard  the  hissing  occasioned  by  its 
plunging  into  the  ocean.2 

1  Strabo,  xvii.  1,  34. 

2  Strabo,  iii.  1,  5.     Ellis,  Polyn.  Res.,  vol.  ii.  p.  414.     See  also  Bastian,   vol.  ii. 
p.  58.     Tac.  Germ.,  c.  45. 


31 G      HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS  OF  OBSERVATION. 

From  the  incredulous  geographer  who  records  the  stories  of 
the  fossil  lentils  and  the  hissing  sun,  yet  another  Myth  of  Ob- 
servation may  be  taken,  which  shows  well  the  easy  transition 
from  "  it  may  have  been,"  to  "  it  was,"  which  lies  at  their  root. 
Mr.  Catlin,  in  one  of  his  journeys,  says  that  he  came  to  a  place 
where  he  saw  rocks  "  looking  as  if  they  had  actually  dropped 
from  the  clouds  in  such  a  confused  mass,  and  all  lay  where  they 
had  fallen."  So  in  old  times,  a  round  plain  between  Marseilles 
and  the  mouths  of  the  Rhone  was  called  the  "  stony  "  plain, 
from  its  being  covered  with  stones  as  big  as  a  man's  fist.  You 
would  think,  says  Pomponius  Mela,  that  the  stones  had  rained 
there,  so  many  are  they,  and  so  far  and  wide  do  they  lie.1  Now 
jJEschylus,  says  Strabo,  having  perceived  the  difficulty  of  account- 
ing for  these  stones,  or  having  heard  about  it  from  some  one 
else,  has  wrested  the  whole  matter  into  a  myth.  In  some  lines 
of  his,  preserved  to  us  by  Strabo's  quotation  of  them,  Prometheus, 
explaining  to  Hercules  his  way  from  the  Caucasus  to  the  Hespe- 
rides,  tells  him  how  when  his  missiles  fail  him  in  his  ti^ht 
with  the  Ligurians,  and  the  soft  earth  will  not  even  afford  him 
a  stone,  Jove,  pitying  his  defenceless  state,  will  rain  down  a 
shower  of  round  pebbles  over  the  ground,  hurling  which  he  will 
easily  rout  his  foes.2 

Fossil  remains  have  for  ages  been  objects  of  curious  specu- 
lation to  mankind.  In  the  most  distant  regions  where  huge 
bones  have  been  found,  they  have  been  explained,  truly  enough, 
as  being  the  bones  of  monstrous  beasts,  and  as  plausibly, 
though,  as  later  investigations  have  shown  within  the  last  cen- 
tury, not  so  correctly,  as  bones  of  giants.  Given  the  belief  that 
the  earth  was  formerly  inhabited  by  monsters  and  giants,  the 
myth-making  power  of  the  human  niiud  gave  "  a  local  habita- 
tion and  a  name  "  wherever  it  was  required,  and  the  battles  of 
these  monsters  with  each  other,  and  with  man,  were  worked 
into  the  general  mass  of  popular  tradition,  with  gradually  in- 
creasing fulness  and  accuracy  of  detail.  The  Asiatic  sagas 
which  have  grown  out  of  the  finding  of  the  frozen  mammoths, 
and  the  fossil  remains  of  these  and  other  great  extinct  animals, 
are  excellent  cases  in  point.  Many  of  them  have  been  collected 

Catlin,  vol.  ii.  p.  70.     Mela,  ii.  c.  5.  2  Strabo,  iv.  1,  7. 


HISTORICAL   TRADITIONS   AND   MYTHS   OF  OBSERVATION.      317 

and  criticized  in  an  admirable  paper  published  more  than  twenty 
years  ago  by  Von  Olfers,  of  Berlin.1 

The  Siberians  are  constantly  finding  bones  and  teeth  of  mam- 
moths imbedded  in  the  faces  of  cliffs  or  river  banks  at  some 
depth  below  the  surface.  Often  a  mass  of  earth  or  gravel  falls 
away  from  such  a  cliff,  and  exposes  such  remains.  How  could 
they  have  got  there  ?  A  plausible  explanation  suggested  itself, 
that  the  creature  was  a  huge  burrowing  animal,  and  lived  un- 
derground. Not  only  the  skeleton,  but  the  body  in  tolerable 
preservation  with  flesh  and  skin  being  found  in  a  frozen  state 
in  high  Northern  latitudes,  the  notion  grew  up  that  it  was  a 
monstrous  kind  of  burrowing  rat,  and  it  is  described  in  Chinese 
books  under  such  names  &sfen-shu,  or  "  digging  rat,"  yen-men, 
or  "burrowing  ox,"  shu-mu,  "mother  of  mice,"  and  so  on.  A 
difficulty  which  suggested  itself  to  the  native  Siberian  geologists 
was  met  in  a  characteristic  manner.  It  was  strange  that  when- 
ever they  came  upon  a  mammoth  imbedded  in  a  cliff1,  it  was 
always  dead.  It  must  be  a  creature  unable  to  bear  the  air  or 
the  light,  and  when  in  the  course  of  its  subterranean  wanderings 
it  breaks  through  to  the  outer  air  it  dies  immediately.  With  so 
much  knowledge  of  the  natural  history  of  the  creature  to  start 
from,  other  details  grow  round  it  in  the  usual  way.  Yakuts  and 
Tunguz  have  seen  the  earth  heave  and  sink,  as  a  mammoth 
walked  beneath.  It  frequents  marshes,  and  travels  underground, 
never  appearing  above  the  surface  of  the  earth  or  water  during 
the  day,  but  has  been  seen  at  dawn  in  lakes  and  rivers,  just  as  it 
dived  below.  The  account  of  it  given  in  the  Chinese  Encyclo- 
pedia of  Kang-hi  is  as  follows  : — 

"  Fen-shu. — The  cold  is  extreme  and  almost  continual  on  the 
coast  of  the  Northern  Sea,  beyond  the  Tai-tong-Kiang  ;  on  this 
coast  is  found  the  animal  Fen-shu,  which  resembles  a  rat  in 
shape,  but  is  as  big  as  an  elephant ;  it  dwells  in  dark  caverns, 
and  ever  shuns  the  light.  There  is  got  from  it  an  ivory  as  white 
as  that  of  the  elephant,  but  easier  to  work,  and  not  liable  to  split. 
Its  flesh  is  very  cold,  and  excellent  for  refreshing  the  blood. 

1  J.  F.  M.  y.  Olfers,  'Die  Ueberreste  vorweltlicher  Riesenthiere  in  Beziehung 
zu  Ostasiatischen  Sagen  und  Chinesischen  Schriften'  (Berlin  Acad.,  1839);  Berlin; 
1810. 


318      HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS  OF  OBSERVATION. 

The  ancient  book  Shin-y-King  speaks  of  this  animal  in  the 
following  terms: — There  is  in  the  extreme  north,  among  the 
snows  and  ice  which  cover  this  region,  a  shu  (rat),  which  weighs 
up  to  a  thousand  pounds,  its  flesh  is  very  good  for  those  who 
are  heated.  The  Tse-shu  calls  it  fen-sJiu,  and  speaks  of 
another  kind  which  is  of  less  size  ;  it  is  only,  says  this  authority, 
as  large  as  a  buffalo,  it  burrows  like  the  moles,  shuns  the  light, 
and  almost  always  stays  in  its  underground  caves.  It  is  said 
that  it  would  die  if  it  saw  the  light  of  the  sun,  or  even  of  the 
moon."1 

The  story  of  the  mammoth  being  a  burrowing  animal,  which 
has  arisen  from  the  finding  its  remains  exposed  in  cliffs  or  banks 
deep  below  the  surface,  becomes  the  more  valuable  as  evidence 
of  the  growth  6f  myths,  from  the  fact  that  on  the  other  side  of 
the  world  a  like  story  has  developed  itself  from  a  like  origin. 
"When  Darwin  visited  certain  cliffs  of  the  river  Parana,  between 
Buenos  Ayres  and  Santa  Fe,  where  many  bones  of  Mastodons 
are  found,  he  says,  "  The  men  who  took  me  in  the  canoe,  said 
they  had  long  known  of  these  skeletons,  and  had  often  wondered 
how  they  had  got  there :  the  necessity  of  a  theory  being  felt,  they 
came  to  the  conclusion  that,  like  the  bizcacha,  the  mastodon  was 
formerly  a  burrowing  animal."2  The  bizcacha  is  a  small  rabbit- 
like  rodent,  common  on  the  Pampas. 

Other  fossil  remains  beside  those  of  the  mammoth  have  given 
rise  to  myths  of  observation  in  Siberia.  The  curved  tusks  of 
the  Rhinoceros  tichorhinus  are  something  like  the  claws  of  a 
monstrous  bird,  and  when  both  tusks  are  found  united  by  part 
of  the  skull,  the  whole  might  very  well  be  taken  by  a  man  totally 
ignorant  of  anatomy,  for  the  bird's  foot  with  two  claws.  The 
Siberians  not  only  believe  the  horns  of  the  rhinoceros  to  be  the 
claws  of  an  enormous  bird,  and  call  them  "birds'  claws"  accord- 
ingly, but  a  family  of  myths  has  developed  itself  out  of  this 
belief,  how  these  winged  monsters  lived  in  the  country  in  the 
time  of  the  ancestors  of  the  present  inhabitants,  who  fought  with 
them  for  the  possession  of  the  laud.  One  story  tells  how  the 
country  was  wasted  by  one  of  them,  till  a  wise  man  fixed  a  pointed 

1  Mem.  cone,  les  Chinois,  vol.  iv.  p.  481.     Klemm,  C.  G.,  vol.  vi.  p.  471. 
*  Darwin,  p.  127. 


HISTORICAL   TRADITIONS   AND  MYTHS   OF   OBSERVATION.      319 

iron  spear  on  the  top  of  a  pine  tree,  and  the  bird  alighted  there, 
and  skewered  itself  upon  the  lance. 

Adolf  Erman  connects  with  much  plausibility  the  well-known 
rukh  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  and  the  griffin  (ypity)  of  Herodotus, 
with  the  tales  of  monstrous  birds  current  in  the  gold-producin<* 
regions  of  Siberia ;  and  he  even  suggests  the  remark  that  gold- 
bearing  sand  really  underlies  the  beds  which  contain  these  fossil 
"  birds'  claws  "  as  an  explanation  of  the  passage,  "  it  is  said 
that  the  Arimaspi,  one-eyed  men,  seize  (the  gold)  from  under- 
neath the  griffins"  (Ae'yercu  Se  VTT€K  T&vypvirSiv  ap-d£fiv  Api|ua(nroi>s 
arSpas  juowo</>0a\/xovs).1  At  about  the  same  time  as  Herodotus, 
Ctesias  brings  out  more  fully  the  familiar  figure  of  the  griffin. 
"There  is  also  gold,"  he  says,  "in  the  Indian  country,  not 
found  in  the  streams  and  washed,  as  in  the  river  Pactolus ;  but 
there  are  many  and  great  mountains,  wherein  dwell  the  griffins, 
four-footed  birds  of  the  greatness  of  the  wolf,  but  with  legs  and 
claws  like  lions.  The  feathers  on  the  rest  of  their  bodies  are 
black,  but  red  on  the  breast.  Through  them  it  is  that  the  gold 
in  the  mountains,  though  plentiful,  is  most  difficult  to  get."3 
That  the  Siberian  myths  of  monstrous  birds  have  passed  into 
the  mediaeval  notions  of  the  griffins  admits  of  no  question  what- 
ever. Albertus  Magnus  describes  them  as  quadrupeds,  with 
birds'  beaks  and  wings  ;  they  dwell  in  Scythia,  and  possess  the 
gold,  and  silver,  and  precious  stones.  The  Arimaspi  fight  with 
them.  In  its  nest  the  griffin  lays  the  agate  for  its  help  and 
medicine.  It  is  hostile  to  men  and  horses :  it  has  long  claws, 
which  are  made  into  goblets ;  they  are  as  big  as  ox-horns,  as  indeed 
the  creature  itself  is  bigger  than  eight  lions  ;  of  its  feathers  are 
made  strong  bows,  arrows,  and  lances.3  With  regard  to  this 
description,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  horns,  cut  in  slices,  are 
really  used  for  plating  bows  ; 4  but  the  bird's  quills,  as  they  are 
still  considered  to  be  in  the  country  where  they  are  found,  are 
the  leg-bones  of  other  animals.5  The  rhinoceros  horns,  supposed 
to  be  griffins'  claws,  were  mounted  in  gold  and  silver  in  Europe 

1  Herod.,  iii.  116.     Erman,  Reise,  vol.  i.  pp.  711-2. 

2  Ctesias,  'De  Rebus  Indicis,'  12.       3  Klemm,  0.  Q.,  vol.  i.  p.  155,  and  see  p.  101. 
4  Olfers,  p.  12.  s  Erman,  vol.  L  p.  711.     See  Lane.  '  Thousand  and  One 

Nights,'  vol.  ii.  p.  53S ;  vol.  iii.  p.  85. 


320      HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS  OF  OBSERVATION. 

in  the  middle  ages,  and  preserved  as  relics  in  churches.  There 
is  or  was  one  in  Corpus  Christi  College,  Cambridge,  mounted 
on  little  gilt  claws,  which  sufficiently  show  what  it  was  thought 
to  be. 

The  Chinese  idea  that  the  mammoth  was  a  huge  rat,  and  the 
very  name  of  "  Mother  of  Mice  "  given  to  it,  fit  curiously  with 
a  set  of  North  American  stories,  which  may  have  a  like  origin  in 
the  finding  of  fossil  remains  of  enormous  size.  The  name  of  the 
"  Pere  aux  Bceufs,"  probably  the  translation  of  a  native  Indian 
name,  was  given  to  an  extinct  animal  whose  huge  bones  were 
found  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio.1  The  Indians  of  New  France, 
Father  Paul  le  Jeune  relates  in  1635,  "  say  besides,  that  all  the 
animals  of  each  species  have  an  elder  brother,  who  is  as  the 
beginning  and  origin  of  all  the  race,  and  this  elder  brother  is 
marvellously  great  and  powerful.  The  elder  brother  of  the 
beavers,  they  told  me,  is  perhaps  as  big  as  our  hut."2 
There  are  current  among  the  Iroquois,  says  Morgan,  fables  of 
a  buffalo  of  such  huge  dimensions  as  to  thresh  down  the  forest 
in  his  march.3  And  lastly,  in  one  of  the  North  American  tales 
of  the  Sun- catcher,  we  find  a  creature  to  which  the  name  of 
"  Mother  of  Mice  "  may  well  belong.  When  the  sun  was  to  be 
set  free  from  the  snare,  the  animals  debated  who  should  go  up 
and  sever  the  cord,  and  the  dormouse  went,  "for  at  this  time  the 
dormouse  was  the  largest  animal  in  the  world ;  when  it  stood  up 
it  looked  like  a  mountain."  The  whole  story,  which  goes  on  to 
tell  how  it  came  to  pass  that  the  dormice  are  but  small  creatures 
now,  is  given  here  in  the  next  chapter. 

The  native  tribes  of  the  lower  end  of  South  America  explained 
the  reason  why  they,  unlike  the  Spaniards,  had  no  herds  of 
cattle  in  their  country,  by  an  interesting  story,  which  has  the  air 
of  a  myth  of  observation  founded  upon  the  examination  of  caves 

1  Buffon,  Hist.  Nat.  (ed.  Sonnini),  vol.  xxviil  p.  264. 

*  Le  Jeune,  Relations  (1634),  vol.  i.  p.  46.  A  remarkable  resemblance  appears  in 
the  description  of  the  Slavonic  Buydn,  the  ocean-island  of  the  blest,  where  are  to 
be  found  the  Snake  older  than  all  snakes,  the  prophetic  Raven,  elder  brother  of  r.ll 
ravens,  the  Bird,  largest  and  oldest  of  all  birds,  with  iron  beak  and  copper  claws,  and 
the  Mother  of  Bees,  eldest  among  bees ;  Ralston,  '  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,' 
p.  375.  [Note  to  3rd  Edition.] 

»  Morgan,  p.  166. 


HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND   MYTHS  OF  OBSERVATION.      321 

containing  fossil  bones.  They  had  a  multiplicity  of  inferior 
deities  below  the  two  great  powers  of  Good  and  Evil,  who,  there 
as  elsewhere  on  the  American  continent,  are  above  all.  Each  of 
the  lower  deities  presides  over  one  particular  caste  or  family  of 
Indians,  of  which  he  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  creator. 
"  Some  make  themselves  of  the  caste  of  the  tiger,  some  of  the 
lion,  some  of  the  guanaco,  and  others  of  the  ostrich,  etc.  They 
imagine  that  these  deities  have  each  their  separate  habitations, 
in  vsist  caverns  under  the  earth,  beneath  some  lake,  hill,  etc. ; 
and  that  when  an  Indian  dies,  his  soul  goes  to  live  with  the 
deity  who  presides  over  his  particular  family,  there  to  enjoy  the 
happiness  of  being  eternally  drunk.  They  believe  that  their 
good  deities  made  the  world,  and  that  they  first  created  the 
Indians  in  their  caves,  gave  them  the  lance,  the  bow  and  arrows, 
and  the  stone-bowls  to  fight  and  hunt  with,  and  then  turned 
them  out  to  shift  for  themselves.  They  imagine  that  the  deities 
of  the  Spaniards  did  the  same  by  them ;  but  that  instead  of  lances, 
bows,  etc.,  they  gave  them  guns  and  swords.  They  suppose 
that  when  the  beasts,  birds,  and  lesser  animals  were  created, 
those  of  the  more  nimble  kind  came  immediately  out  of  their 
caves  ;  but  that  the  bulls  and  cows  being  the  last,  the  Indians 
were  so  frightened  at  the  sight  of  their  horns,  that  they  stopped 
up  the  entrance  of  their  caves  with  great  stones.  This  is  the 
reason  they  give  why  they  had  no  black  cattle  in  their  country 
till  the  Spaniards  brought  them  over,  who  more  wisely  had  let 
them  out  of  the  caves."1 

The  possibility  that  the  Brazilian  belief  in  the  caypor,  or  wild 
ape-like  being  of  the  woods,  may  be  derived  from  a  recollection 
of  a  great  extinct  ape,  has  been  already  mentioned,  but  there  is 
a  circumstance  which  rather  favours  the  idea  of  its  being  a 
myth,  founded  on  the  examination  of  fossil  bones.  Like  the 
mammoth  and  the  mastodon,  and  the  creators  of  the  beasts  and 
birds,  he  is  thought  to  live  underground.  "  They  believe  he 
has  subterranean  campos  and  hunting  grounds  in  the  forest, 
well  stocked  with  pacas  and  deer."3  It  is  possible,  too,  that 
the  notion  of  subterranean  animals,  who  die  if  they  see  the  day- 

1  Thos.  Falkner,  '  A  Description  of  Patagonia,'  etc. ;  Hereford,  1774,  p.  114. 
3  Bates,  vol.  ii.  p.  204. 

Y 


322      HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS   OF  OBSERVATION. 

light,  like  the  mammoths  of  Siberia,  may  be  traced  in  various 
stories.  Thus,  the  Fijians  tell  a  tale  of  two  rocks,  male  and 
female  Lado,  which  are  two  deities  who  were  turned  by  the 
sight  of  daylight  into  stone ; ]  and  in  the  West  Indies  there  were 
men  who  dwelt  in  Cimmerian  darkness  in  their  caves,  and 
coming  out  were  turned  into  stones  and  trees  by  the  sight  of  the 
sun.2 

Tales  of  giants  and  monsters,  which  stand  in  direct  con- 
nexion with  the  finding  of  great  fossil  bones,  are  scattered 
broadcast  over  the  mythology  of  the  world.  Huge  bones, 
found  at  Punto  Santa  Elena,  in  the  north  of  Guayaquil,  have 
served  as  a  foundation  for  the  story  of  a  colony  of  giants  who 
dwelt  there.3  The  whole  area  of  the  Pampas  is  a  great  sepulchre 
of  enormous  extinct  animals  ;  no  wonder  that  one  great  plain 
should  be  called  the  "  Field  of  the  giants,"  and  that  such  names 
as  "  the  hill  of  the  giant,"  "the  stream  of  the  animal,"  should 
be  guides  to  the  geologist  in  his  search  for  fossil  bones.4 

In  North  America  it  is  the  same.  The  fossil  bones  of  Mexico 
are  referred  to  ths  giants  who  dwelt  in  the  land  in  early  times, 
and  were  found  living  in  the  plains  of  Tlascala  by  the  Olmecs, 
who  came  there  before  the  Toltecs.  At  the  time  of  the  conquest, 
Bernal  Diaz  was  told  of  their  huge  stature  and  their  crimes  ; 
and,  to  show  him  how  big  they  were,  the  people  brought  him  a 
bone  of  one  of  them,  which  he  measured  himself  against,  and  it 
was  as  tall  as  he,  who  was  a  man  of  reasonable  stature.  He  and 
his  companions  were  astonished  to  see  those  bones,  and  held  it 
for  certain  that  there  had  been  giants  in  that  land.5  The  Indians 
of  North  America  tell  how  their  mythic  hero,  Manabozho,  "  killed 
the  ancient  monsters  whose  bones  we  now  see  under  the  earth." 
They  use  pieces  of  the  bones  of  these  monsters  as  charms,  and 
most  likely  the  pieces  of  bone  drawn  in  their  pictures  as  instru- 
ments of  magic  power  are  such.  They  tell  of  giants  who  could 
stride  over  the  largest  rivers,  and  the  tallest  pine-trees.  The 
Winnebagos  say  their  monstrous  medicine  animal  still  exists, 

1  Scemann,  '  Viti,'  p.  66.  J  Oviedo,  in  Purchas,  vol.  v.  p.  959. 

3  Humboldt,  Vues  des  Cord.,  pi.  26.  Cieza  de  Leon,  p.  189.  Kivero  and  Tsehudi, 
Ant.  Per.  p.  51.  4  Darwin,  in  Narr.,  vol.  iii.  p.  155. 

*  Bernal  Diaz,  Conq.  de  la  Nueva  Espafia  ;  Madrid,  1795,  vol.  i.  p.  350.  Tylor, 
*SLxico,'  p.  236.  Clavigero,  vol.  i.  p.  125.  Humboldt,  Vues  des  Cord.,  pi.  26. 


HISTORICAL   TRADITION'S   AND   MYTHS   OF  OBSERVATION.      323 

and  they  have  pieces  of  the  bones  which  belong  to  them,  which 
they  use  as  charms.  The  Dacotas  use  such  bones  for  "  medicine," 
and  say  they  belong  to  the  great  horned  water-beast,  the  Unk-a- 
ta-he.  Hiawatha  helped  the  Indians  to  subdue  the  great  monsters 
that  overran  the  country.  The  "  Tom  Thumb  "  of  the  Chippe- 
was  killed  the  giants  and  hacked  them  into  little  pieces,  saying, 
"  Henceforth  let  no  man  be  larger  than  you  are  now,"  and  so  men 
became  of  their  present  size.1  There  are  plenty  more  such  stories. 
One  mentioned  by  Dr.  Wilson  has  the  interesting  feature  that 
monsters  and  giants  both  perished  by  the  thunderbolts  of  the 
Great  Spirit,  and  in  another  all  the  monsters  were  thus  slain  ex- 
cept the  Big  Bull,  who  went  off  to  the  Great  Lakes.2  It  must 
be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  in  speculating  on  the  origin  of 
tales  such  as  these,  possible  recollections  of  contests  of  men  with 
huge  animals  now  extinct  must  be  taken  into  consideration,  as 
well  as  inferences  from  the  finding  of  large  bones,  and  sometimes 
even  both  causes  may  have  worked  together. 

In  the  Old  World,  myths  both  old  and  new  connected  with 
huge  bones,  fossil  or  recent,  are  common  enough.3  Marcus 
Scaurus  brought  to  Rome,  from  Joppa,  the  bones  of  the  mon- 
ster who  was  to  have  devoured  Andromeda,  while  the  vestiges 
of  the  chains  which  bound  her  were  to  be  seen  there  on  the 
rock  ;4  and  the  sepulchre  of  Antaeus,  containing  his  skeleton, 
GO  cubits  long,  was  found  in  Mauritania.5 

Don  Quixote  was  beforehand  with  Dr.  Falconer  in  reasoning 
on  the  huge  fossil  bones  so  common  in  Sicily  as  remains  of 
ancient  inhabitants,  as  appears  from  his  answer  to  the  barber's 
question,  how  big  he  thought  the  giant  Morgante  might  have 
be-on?  "...  Moreover,  in  the  island  of  Sicily  there  have 
been  found  long-bones  and  shoulder-bones  so  huge,  that  their 
size  manifests  their  owners  to  have  been  giants,  and  as  big  as 
great  towers,  for  this  truth  geometry  sets  beyond  doubt." 
Again,  the  fossil  bones  so  plentifully  strewed  over  the  Sewalik, 
or  lowest  ranges  of  the  Himalayas,  belonged  to  the  slain  Rakis/1 

1  Schoolcraft,  part  i.  pp.  319,  390  ;  part.  ii.  pp.  175,  224  ;  part  iii.  pp.  232,  315, 
319.  2  Wilson,  'Prehistoric  Man,'  vol.  i.  p.  112. 

3  In  Polynesia,  see  Mariner,  vol.  i.  p.  313. 

4  Plin.,"ix.  4;  v.  14.         &  Strabo,  xvii.  3,  8.         6  Torrens,  'Ladak,'  et&,  p.  87 

Y  2 


324      HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS  OF  OBSERVATION. 

the  gigantic  Eakshasas  of  the  Indian  mythology.  The  remains 
of  the  Dun  Cow  that  Guy  Earl  of  Warwick  slew  are  or  were  to  be 
seen  in  England,  in  the  shape  of  a  whale's  rib  in  the  church  of 
St.  Mary  Kedcliffe,  and  some  great  fossil  bone  kept,  I  believe,  in 
Warwick  Castle.  "  The  giant  sixteen  feet  high,  whose  bones- were 
found  in  1577  near  Heyden  under  an  uprooted  oak,  and  examined 
and  celebrated  in  song  by  Felix  Plater,  the  renowned  physician 
of  Basle,  has  been  long  ago  banished  by  later  naturalists  into  a 
very  distant  department  of  zoology ;  but  the  giant  has  from  that 
time  forth  got  a  firm  standing  ground  beside  the  arms  of  Lucerne, 
and  will  keep  it,  all  critics  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding."1 

It  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate  more  instances  in  which 
traditions  of  giants  and  huge  beasts  have  been  formed  both  in 
ancient  and  modern  times  from  the  finding  of  great  fossil  bones. 
But  the  remarks  of  St.  Augustine  on  a  great  fossil  tooth  he  saw 
are  worthy  of  attention,  as  throwing  some  light  on  the  connexion 
of  such  bones  with  the  belief  that  man  was  once  both  enormously 
larger  and  longer-lived  than  he  is  now,  and  that  his  stature  has 
diminished  in  the  course  of  ages  to  its  present  dimensions ;  as  it 
is  held  by  the  Moslems  that  Adam  was  sixty  feet  high,  of  the 
measure  of  a  tall  palm-tree,  and  that  the  true  believers  will  be 
restored  in  Paradise  to  this  original  stature  of  the  human  race, 
and  that  the  houris  who  will  attend  them  will  be  of  proportion- 
ate dimensions.  It  seems  as  if  Linnaeus  may  have  held  such  an 
opinion,  at  least  his  editor  gives  the  following  as  his  reading  of  a 
passage  in  the  notes  of  his  northern  tour,  where  unfortunately  the 
original  is  obscure.  "  I  have  a  notion  that  Adam  and  Eve  were 
giants,  and  that  mankind,  from  one  generation  to  another,  owing 
to  poverty  and  other  causes,  have  diminished  in  size.  Hence  per- 
haps the  diminutive  stature  of  the  Laplander."  2 

St.  Augustine's  observations  are  contained  in  his  chapter 
"  Concerning  the  long  life  of  men  before  the  flood,  and  the 
greater  size  of  their  bodies."  He  makes  these  remarks,  he 
says,  in  case  any  infidel  should  raise  a  doubt  about  men  having 
lived  to  so  great  an  age.  "  So  some  indeed  do  not  believe  that 
men's  bodies  were  formerly  much  greater  than  now."  Virgil,  he 

1  Olfere,  p.  3.     See  also  Grimm,  D.  M.  p.  522. 

2  Linnaeus,  '  Tour,'  vol.  i.  p.  28. 


HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS   AND   MYTHS   OF   OBSERVATION.      325 

continues,  expresses  the  huge  size  of  the  men  of  former  times, 
how  much  more  then  in  the  younger  periods  of  the  world,  before 
the  celebrated  deluge.  "  But  concerning  the  magnitude  of  their 
bodies,  the  graves  laid  bare  by  age  or  the  force  of  rivers  and 
various  accidents  especially  convict  the  incredulous,  where  they 
have  come  to  light,  or  where  bones  of  the  dead  of  incredible 
magnitude  have  fallen.  I  have  seen,  and  not  I  alone,  on  the 
shore  by  Utica,  so  huge  a  molar  tooth  of  a  man,  that  were  it  cut 
up  into  small  models  of  teeth  like  ours,  it  would  seem  enough 
to  make  a  hundred  of  them.  But  this  I  should  think  had 
belonged  to  some  giant ;  for  beside  that  the  bodies  of  all  men 
were  then  much  larger  than  ours,  the  giants  again  far  exceeded 
the  rest."1 

Among  the  traditions  preserved  from  remote  ages  by  the  human 
race,  there  are  perhaps  none  more  important  to  the  ethnologist 
than  those  which  relate,  in  every  great  district  of  the  world,  and 
with  so  much  unity  combined  with  so  much  variety,  the  occur- 
rence of  a  great  Deluge  in  long  past  time.  In  studying  these 
Diluvial  Traditions  it  is  of  the  highest  consequence  that  he  should 
be  able  to  separate  the  results  of  the  memory  of  real  events  from 
those  of  observation  of  natural  phenomena  and  of  purely  mytho- 
logical development.  Humboldt  in  part  states  the  problem  in 
his  remarks  on  the  four  devastations  of  the  earth,  by  famine,  fire, 
hurricane,  and  deluge,  as  represented  in  the  Mexican  picture- 
writing.  "  Whatever  may  be  their  true  origin,  it  does  not  ap- 
pear less  certain  that  they  are  fictions  of  astronomical  mythology, 
modified  either  by  a  dim  remembrance  of  some  great  revolution 
which  our  planet  has  undergone,  or  in  accordance  with  the 
physical  and  geological  hypotheses  to  which  the  appearance  of 
marine  petrifactions  and  fossil  bones  gives  rise,  even  among 
peoples  at  the  greatest  distance  from  civilization."2 

That  the  observation  of  shells  and  corals  in  places  above  the 
level  of  the  sea,  and  even  on  high  mountains,  should  have  given 
rise  to  legends  of  great  floods  which  deposited  them  there,  is 
natural  enough,  and  quite  consistent  with  the  growth  of  myths 
of  monsters  and  giants  from  the  observation  of  fossil  bones. 
Marine  productions  being  found  at  heights  of  many  hundred 
1  Aug.,  'De  Civitate  Dei,'  xv.  9.  2  Humboldt,  Vues  des  Cord.,  pi  26. 


326      HISTORICAL   TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS   OF  OBSERVATION. 

feet  above  the  sea,  the  question  would  evidently  occur  to  the 
men  who  speculated  so  ingeniously  about  the  fossil  bones,  how 
did  these  productions  of  the  sea  get  upon  the  mountains  ?  As 
to  fossil  crustaceans,  the  Arabian  geographer  Abu-Zeyd  ex- 
plains their  appearance  in  Ceylon  by  setting  them  down  as  sea- 
animals  like  craw-fish,  which,  when  they  come  out  of  the  sea,  are 
converted  into  stone,1  but  the  appearance  of  sea-shells  on  moun- 
tains could  hardly  be  so  accounted  for.  Two  alternatives  suggest 
themselves  to  explain  the  occurrence  of  shells  in  such  situations ; 
either  the  sea  may  have  been  up  to  the  mountain,  or  the  moun- 
tain may  have  been  down  in  the  sea.  Modern  geologists  have  in 
most  cases  to  adopt  the  latter  alternative,  but  till  recent  times 
the  former  was  offcener  than  not  held  to  be  the  more  probable. 
Water  is  the  type  of  all  that  is  movable,  fluctuating,  unstable, 
while  the  firm  earth  is  immovable,  permanent,  solid,  and  it  is 
not  to  the  purpose  to  argue  that  modern  knowledge  has  reversed 
this  older  view,  with  so  many  other  doctrines  which  seemed  to 
rest  on  the  plain  evidence  of  the  senses,  and  which  only  failed, 
as  many  of  our  own  theories  have  no  doubt  to  fail,  from  the 
narrowness  of  their  range  of  observation. 

The  fossils  embedded  in  high  ground  have  been  appealed  to, 
both  in  ancient  and  modern  times,  both  by  savages  and  civilized 
men,  as  evidence  in  support  of  their  traditions  of  a  flood,  and 
moreover  the  argument,  apparently  unconnected  with  any 
tradition,  is  to  be  found,  that  because  there  are  marine  fossils 
in  places  away  from  the  sea,  therefore  the  sea  must  once  have 
been  there.  In  the  Society  Islands,  tradition  tells  how  a  flood 
that  rose  over  the  tops  of  the  mountains,  was  raised  by  the 
sea-god  Ruahatu.  A  fisherman  caught  his  hooks  in  the  hair  of 
the  god  as  he  lay  sleeping  among  his  coral  groves,  and  woke 
him,  but  strange  to  say,  though  in  his  anger  he  drowned  the 
rest  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  in  the  deluge,  he  allowed  the 
fisherman  himself  to  find  safe  refuge  with  his  wife  and  child  on 
a  small,  low,  coral  island  close  to  Eaiatea,  and  they  repeopled 
the  earth.  How  the  little  island  was  preserved  they  give  no 
account,  but  they  appeal  to  thefarero,  coral,  and  shells  found  at 
the  tops  of  the  highest  mountains,  as  proof  of  the  inundation.2  In 
1  Teunent,  'Ceylon,'  vol.  L  p.  14.  8  Ellis,  Polyn.  Res.,  vol.  ii.  p.  58. 


HISTOKICAL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS  OF  OBSERVATION.      327 

Samoa  it  is  the  universal  belief  that  of  old  the  fish  swam  where 
the  land  now  is,  and  tradition  adds  that  when  the  waters  abated, 
many  of  the  fish  of  the  sea  were  left  on  the  land,  and  afterwards 
were  changed  into  stones.  Hence,  they  say,  there  are  stones  in 
abundance  in  the  bush  and  among  the  mountains,  which  were 
once  sharks,  and  other  inhabitants  of  the  deep.1  In  the  North 
the  Moravian  missionary  Cranz  records  that,  "  The  first  mis- 
sionaries found  among  the  Greenlanders  a  tolerably  distinct 
tradition  of  the  Deluge,  of  which  almost  all  heathen  nations  still 
know  something,  namely,  that  the  world  was  once  tilted  over 
(umgekantert)  and  all  men  were  drowned,  but  some  became  fire- 
spirits.  The  only  man  who  remained  alive,  smote  afterwards 
with  his  stick  upon  the  ground,  and  there  came  out  a  woman, 
with  whom  he  peopled  the  earth  again.  They  tell  moreover 
that  far  up  in  the  country,  where  men  could  never  have  dwelt, 
there  are  found  all  sorts  of  remains  of  fishes,  and  even  bones  of 
whales  on  a  high  mountain  ;  wherefrom  they  make  it  clear  that 
the  earth  was  once  flooded."2  It  is  interesting  to  compare  this 
argument  with  the  explanation  the  Kamchadals  give  of  the  bones  of 
whales,  which  in  their  country  also  are  found  on  high  mountains. 
They  fear  all  high  mountains,  says  Steller,  especially  volcanos,  and 
also  hot  springs,  and  believe  that  some  mountains  are  the  abodes 
of  spirits.  "  When  one  asks  them  what  the  devils  do  up  there, 
they  reply  'they  cook  whales.'  I  asked,  where  they  got  them? 
The  answer  was,  they  go  down  to  the  sea  at  night  and  catch 
SD  many,  that  one  brings  home  five  to  ten  of  them,  one  hanging 
to  each  finger.  When  I  asked,  how  do  you  know  this  ?  They 
said  their  old  people  had  always  said  so  and  believed  it  them- 
selves. Withal  they  appealed  to  the  observation,  that  there 
were  many  bones  of  whales  found  on  all  burning  mountains.  I 
asked  whence  come  the  flames  there  sometimes,  and  they 
answered,  when  the  spirits  have  heated  up  their  mountains  as 
we  do  our  yurts,  they  fling  the  rest  of  the  brands  out  up  the 
chimney,  so  as  to  be  able  to  shut  up.  They  said  moreover,  God 
in  heaven  sometimes  does  so  too  at  the  time  when  it  is  our 

1  Turner,  '  Polynesia, '  p.  249. 

2  Cranz,    p.    262.      Again   recently,  C.    F.    Hall,    'Life   with  the  Esquimaux ; 
London;  18G4,  vol.  ii.  p.  318. 


328      HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS  OF  OBSERVATION. 

summer  and  his  winter,  and  he  warms  up  his  yurt ;  whereby 
they  explain  the  veneration  of  the  lightning."1 

In  the  geological  theories  of  classical  times,  the  inference 
from  fossil  shells  found  inland,  high  or  low  above  the  sea  level, 
was  commonly  that  the  sea  had  once  been  there.  Herodotus 
argues  from  the  shells  on  the  mountains  in  Egypt,2  and  Xanthus 
from  the  fossil  shells,  like  cockles  and  scallops,  which  he  had 
seen  far  from  the  sea,  that  there  had  been  sea  in  old  times  where 
the  land  had  since  been  left  dry.  Eratosthenes  notices  the 
existence  of  quantities  of  oyster-shells  and  bits  of  wreck  of  sea- 
going ships  near  the  temple  of  Ammon,  far  inland  in  Lybia, 
while  Strabo  expresses  the  opinion  that  this  temple  was  once 
close  to  the  sea,  though  since  thrown  inland  by  the  retiring  of 
the  waters.3  Describing  the  region  of  Nurnidia  farther  west, 
Pompouius  Mela  relates  that,  "Inland  and  far  enough  from  the 
coast  (if  the  thing  be  credible)  they  tell  that  in  a  wondrous  way 
the  spines  of  fish,  and  fragments  of  murex  and  oyster-shells, 
stones  worn  in  the  ordinary  manner  by  the  waves  and  not 
differing  from  those  of  the  sea,  anchors  fixed  in  the  rocks,  and 
other  similar  signs  and  vestiges  of  the  sea  that  once  spread 
to  those  places,  exist  and  are  found  on  the  barren  plains."4  So 
Ovid  says  in  his  remarkable  statement  of  the  Pythagorean 
doctrines, — 

"  Et  procul  a  pelago  conchae  jacuere  marinas 
Et  vetus  inventa  est  in  montibus  anchora  summis," 

and  argues  thence  that  sea  has  been  converted  into  land.6 

In  the  Chinese  Encyclopaedia  from  which  I  have  already 
quoted  two  remarkable  passages,  an  account  is  to  be  found 
bearing  on  the  present  subject.  "Eastern  Taitary. — In 
travelling  from  the  shore  of  the  Eastern  Sea  toward  Che-lu, 
neither  brooks  nor  ponds  are  met  with  in  the  country,  although 
it  is  intersected  by  mountains  and  valleys.  Nevertheless  there 
are  found  in  the  sand  very  far  away  from  the  sea,  oyster-shells 
and  the  shields  of  crabs.  The  tradition  of  the  Mongols  who 
inhabit  the  country  is,  that  it  has  been  said  from  time  immemo- 

1  Steller,  p.  47.  »  Herod.,  ii.  12.  3  Strabo,  i.  3,  4. 

*  Mela,  L  c.  6.  *  Ov.  Met,  xv.  264. 


HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS  OF  OBSERVATION.     329 

rial  that  in  remote  antiquity  the  waters  of  the  deluge  flooded 
the  district,  and  when  they  retired,  the  places  where  they  had 
been  made  their  appearance  covered  with  sand.  .  .  .  However 
it  may  have  happened,  to  follow  the  great  geographer  Ti-chi,  a 
part  of  this  country  is  in  great  plains,  where  several  hundred 
leagues  are  found  to  have  been  covered  by  the  waters  and  since 
abandoned ;  this  is  why  these  deserts  are  called  the  Sandy  Sea, 
which  indicates  that  they  were  not  originally  covered  with  sand 
and  gravel."1 

Again,  the  presence  of  fossil  shells  on  high  mountains  has 
long  been  adduced  as  evidence  of  the  Noachic  flood.  Thus 
Tertulliau  connects  the  sea-shells  on  mountains  with  the  reap- 
pearance of  the  earth  from  below  the  waters,2  and  the  argument 
may  be  followed  up  through  later  times,  and  was  current  in 
England  till  quite  recently.  In  the  ninth  edition  of  Home's 
'  Introduction  to  the  Scriptures,'  published  in  1846,  the  evidence 
of  fossils  is  confidently  held  to  prove  the  universality  of  the 
Deluge  ;  but  the  argument  disappears  from  the  next  edition, 
published  ten  years  later. 

To  the  statements  of  classical  writers  as  to  anchors  and  pieces 
of  wreck  being  found  inland,  some  more  modern  accounts  must 
be  added.  From  time  to  time,  whether  from  upheaval  of  the 
earth's  surface  or  other  geological  changes,  ships  and  things 
belonging  to  them  have  been  found  far  inland,  in  places  for  ages 
out  of  reach  of  navigable  waters.  Buffon  speaks  of  fragments  of 
vessels  being  found  in  a  mountain  lake  in  Portugal,  far  from  the 
sea,  and  mentions  a  statement  of  Sabinus,  in  his  commentary  on 
the  lines  just  quoted  from  Ovid,  that  in  the  year  1460  a  vessel 
was  found  with  its  anchors,  in  a  mine  in  the  Alps.3  This  is,  no 
doubt,  the  same  story  that  Antonio  Galvano  refers  to,  when  he 
says,  "  Thus  they  tell  of  finding  hulls  of  ships  and  iron  anchors 
in  the  mountains  of  Switzerland  very  far  inland,  where  it  appears 
that  there  was  never  sea  nor  salt  water."4 

The  bearing  of  such  phenomena  on  the  formation  of  diluvial 
traditions  is  clearly  shown  by  their  having  been  repeatedly 

1  Mem.  cone,  les  Chinois,  vol.  iv.  p.  474.     Kleram,  C.  G.,  vol.  vi.  p.  467. 

•  lert.,  '  De  Pallio,'  ii.     H.  F.  Link,  'Die  Urwelt,'  etc.  ;  Berlin,  1821,  p.  4. 

•  Button,  '  Theorie  de  la  Terre,'  voL  iii.  p.  119.  4  Galvano,  p.  26. 


330      HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS  OF  OBSERVATION. 

claimed,  like  the  fossil  shells,  as  evidence  of  the  former  presence 
of  the  sea,  and  even  of  the  Biblical  deluge.  It  is  not,  however, 
necessary,  from  this  point  of  view,  that  the  accounts  in  question 
should  all  be  true ;  it  is  enough  that  they  should  be  believed 
and  reasoned  upon.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  Fray  Pedro 
Simon  relates  that  some  miners,  running  an  adit  into  a  hill  near 
Callao,  "  met  with  a  ship  which  had  on  top  of  it  the  great  mass 
of  the  hill,  and  did  not  agree  in  its  make  and  appearance  with 
our  ships,"  whence  people  judged  that  it  had  been  left  there  by 
the  Flood,  and  the  fact  is  cited  in  proof  of  the  habitation  of  the 
country  in  antediluvian  times.1  Writing  in  1730,  Strahlenberg 
gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  mammoth  bones  in  Siberia  are 
relics  of  the  Deluge,  and  goes  on  to  add  a  like  example,  that 
some  thirty  years  earlier  the  whole  lower  hull  of  a  ship  with  a 
keel  was  found  in  Barabinsk  Tartary,  where  nevertheless  there 
is  no  ocean.2  Lastly,  in  Scotland  it  is  quite  a  common  thing 
for  ancient  canoes  hollowed  from  a  single  tree  to  be  found  buried 
in  places  remote  from  navigable  channels,  while  the  skeletons  of 
whales  are  found  in  similar  situations.  Sir  John  Clerk  thus 
remarks  upon  a  canoe  found  near  Edinburgh  in  1726.  "  The 
washings  of  the  river  Carron  discovered  a  boat,  13  or  14  feet 
underground ;  it  is  36  feet  in  length,  and  4^  in  breadth,  all  of 
one  piece  of  oak.  There  were  several  strata  above  it,  such  as 
loam,  clay,  shells,  moss,  sand,  and  gravel ;  these  strata  demon- 
strate it  to  have  been  an  antediluvian  boat."3 

Both  in  Scotland  and  in  South  America,  upheaval  of  land  in 
more  or  less  modern  times  is  a  recognized  fact,  and  the  finding 
of  boats,  as  of  various  other  productions  of  human  art,  in  places 
where  they  could  hardly  have  been  placed  by  man,  is  readily 
accounted  for  between  this  upheaval  and  the  effects  of  ordinary 
accumulation  and  degradation. 

Geological  evidence  bearing  on  traditions  of  a  Deluge  is  scarce. 
Sir  Charles  Lyell  seems  disposed  to  adopt  the  view  of  old  writers 
that  some  of  the  South  American  deluge  traditions  are  connected 

1  Simon,  '  Noticias  Historiales,'  etc.  ;  Cuenca.  1627,  p.  31. 

a  Strahlenberg,  'Das  Nord  und  Ostliche  Theil  \on  Europa  und  A?ien  ;'  Stockholm, 
1730,  p.  396.  C.  Hamilton  Smith,  p.  45. 

3  Bibl.  Tcpog.  Brit.  ;  London,  1790,  vol.  iii.  parti,  p.  241.  Wilson,  'Arc.,tt-o- 
logy,  etc.,  of  Scotland,'  p.  32. 


HISTORICAL   TRADITIONS   AND   MYTHS   OF   OBSERVATION.      331 

with  the  memory  of  local  floods,  such  as  are  known  to  happen 
there.  Dr.  Szab6  says  that  the  Hungarians  still  preserve  tradi- 
tions of  their  plains  having  been  once  covered  by  a  freshwater 
sea,  the  waters  of  which  afterwards  escaped  through  the  narrows 
of  the  Iron  Gate.  The  draining  of  the  country  in  this  manner 
is  considered  by  Dr.  Szabo  as  having  really  happened,  so  that 
this  may  be  a  case  of  tradition  handing  down  the  memory  of  a 
geological  change  from  a  very  remote  period.1  It  would  require 
a  large  body  of  scientific  evidence  of  this  character  to  make 
possible  a  thorough  investigation  of  the  Diluvial  traditions  of  the 
world,  and  any  attempt  to  draw  a  distinct  line  between  the 
claims  of  History  and  Mythology  must  in  the  meantime  be 
premature. 

It  fortunately  happens  that  the  difficulty  in  analysing  the 
Diluvial  traditions  into  their  historical  and  mythological  ele- 
ments is  one  which  only  partially  affects  their  use  to  Ethnology. 
Were  they  merely  stories  current  in  various  parts  of  the  world, 
saying  little  more  than  that  there  was  once  a  great  flood,  or 
giving  details  only  harmonizing  within  limited  districts,  they 
might  be  explained  as  independent  Myths  of  Observation.  But 
the  general  state  of  things  found  over  the  world  is  widely  different 
from  this.  The  notion  of  men  having  existed  before  this  flood, 
and  having  been  all  destroyed  except  a  few  who  escaped  and 
re-peopled  the  earth,  does  not  flow  so  immediately  from  the 
observation  of  natural  phenomena  that  we  can  easily  suppose  it 
to  have  originated  several  times  independently  in  such  a  way, 
yet  this  is  a  feature  common  to  a  great  number  of  flood  tradi- 
tions. Still  more  strongly  does  this  argument  apply  to  the 
occurrence  of  some  form  of  raft,  ark,  or  canoe,  in  which  the 
survivors  are  usually  saved,  unless,  as  in  some  cases,  they  take 
refuge  directly  on  the  top  of  some  mountain  which  the  waters 
lu'ver  cover.  The  idea  is  indeed  conceivable,  if  somewhat  far- 
fetched, that  from  the  sight  of  a  boat  found  high  on  a  mountain 
there  might  grow  a  story  of  the  flood  which  carried  it  there, 
while  the  people  in  it  escaped  to  found  a  new  race.  But  it  lies 
outside  all  reasonable  probability  to  suppose  such  circumstances 
to  have  produced  the  same  story  in  several  different  places,  nor 

1  Geol.  Journal,  Feb.  1863. 


332      HISTORICAL  TRADITIONS  AND  MYTHS   OF   OBSERVATION. 

is  it  very  likely  that  the  dim  remembrances  of  a  number  of  local 
floods  should  accord  in  this  with  the  amount  of  consistency  that 
is  found  among  the  flood  traditions  of  remote  regions  of  the 
world.  The  occurrence  of  an  ark  in  the  traditions  of  a  deluge 
found  in  so  many  distant  times  and  places,  favours  the  opinion 
of  these  being  derived  from  a  single  source. 

As  to  Myths  of  Observation  in  general,  the  line  of  demarcation 
which  separates  them  on  the  one  hand  from  traditions  of  real 
events,  and  on  the  other  from  more  purely  mythic  tales,  is 
equally  hard  to  draw.  Even  the  stories  which  have  their  origin 
in  a  mere  realized  metaphor,  or  a  personification  of  the  pheno- 
mena of  nature,  will  attach  themselves  to  real  persons,  places, 
or  objects,  as  strongly  as  though  they  actually  belonged  to  them. 
To  the  subjective  mind  of  the  myth  maker,  every  hill  and  valley, 
every  stone  and  tree,  that  strikes  his  attention,  becomes  the 
place  wbere  some  mythic  occurrence  happened  to  gods,  or  heroes, 
or  fair  women,  or  monsters,  or  ethereal  beings.  When  once  the 
tale  is  made,  the  rock  or  tree  becomes  evidence  of  its  truth  to 
future  generations  :  "  the  bricks  are  alive  at  this  day  to  testify 
it ;  therefore,  deny  it  not." 


CHAPTER    XII. 

GEOGRAPHICAL    DISTRIBUTION    OF    MYTHS. 

THE  student  of  the  early  History  of  Mankind  finds  in  Com- 
parative Mythology  the  same  use  and  the  same  difficulty  which 
lie  before  him  in  so  many  other  branches  of  his  subject.  He 
can  sometimes  show,  in  the  mythical  tales  current  among  several 
peoples,  coincidences  so  quaint,  so  minute,  or  so  complex,  that 
they  could  hardly  have  arisen  independently  in  two  plates,  and 
these  coincidences  he  claims  as  proofs  of  historical  connexion 
between  the  tribes  or  nations  among  whom  they  are  found.  But 
his  great  difficulty  is  how  to  be  sure  that  he  is  not  interpreting 
as  historical  evidence  analogies  which  may  be  nothing  more  than 
the  results  of  the  like  working  of  the  human  mind  under  like 
conditions.  His  ever-recurring  problem  is  to  classify  the  crowd 
of  resemblances  which  are  continually  thrusting  themselves  upon 
him,  so  as  to  keep  those  things  which  are  merely  similar  apart 
from  those  which,  having  at  some  spot  of  the  earth's  surface 
their  common  source  and  centre  of  diffusion,  are  really  and 
historically  united. 

No  attempt  is  made  in  the  present  chapter  to  lay  down  definite 
rules  for  the  solution  of  this  important  problem,  but  a  few  illus- 
trations are  given  of  the  more  general  analogies  running  through 
the  Folk-lore  of  the  world,  which  Ethnology,  for  the  present  at 
least,  has  to  set  aside  ;  and  then  a  few  facts  are  stated,  bearing 
on  the  diffusion  of  Myths  by  recognised  channels  of  intercourse, 
with  the  view  of  introducing  a  group  of  similar  episodes,  which 
it  is  for  the  reader  to  reject  as  caused  by  independent  growth  or 
modern  transmission,  or  to  accept  as  a  contribution  to  the  early 
History  of  the  New  World. 

Firstly,  then,  there  are  found  among  savage  tribes  myths  like 


334  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTIOX  OF  MYTHS. 

in  their  character,  and  therefore  no  doubt  in  their  origin,  to 
those  of  the  great  Aryan  race  which  have  in  our  own  times  been 
so  successfully  traced  to  the  very  point  where  they  arose  out  of 
the  contemplation  of  Nature.  No  one  has  yet  done  for  the  myths 
of  the  lowest  tribes  what  has  been  done  for  those  of  our  more 
highly  developed  race  by  Kuhn  and  Miiller,  and  their  school  in 
Germany  and  England ;  but  Schirren,  by  his  treatment  of  the 
gods  and  mythic  ancestors  of  the  South  Sea  Islanders  as  personi- 
fications of  the  phenomena  of  nature,  has  made  an  important 
step  toward  extending  the  modern  method  of  interpretation  to 
the  Mythology  of  the  World.1  Still,  a  very  slight  acquaintance 
with  the  popular  tales  of  America,  Polynesia,  even  Australia  and 
Van  Diemen's  Land,  will  show  that  they  are  the  same  in  their 
nature  and  often  in  their  incidents,  by  virtue  of  the  like  nature 
of  the  minds  which  conceived  them. 

As  Zeus,  the  personified  Heaven  of  our  own  race,  drops  tears 
on  earth  which  mortals  call  rain,  so  does  the  heaven-god  of 

Tahiti ; 

"  Thickly  falls  the  small  rain  on  the  face  of  the  sea, 
They  are  not  drops  of  rain,  but  they  are  tears  of  Oro."  * 

In  the  dark  patches  on  the  face  of  the  moon,  the  Singhalese 
sees  the  pious  hare  that  offered  itself  to  Buddha  to  be  cooked 
and  eaten,  when  he  was  wandering  hungry  in  the  forest.  The 
Northman  saw  there  the  two  children  whom  Mani  the  Moon 
caught  up,  as  they  were  taking  the  water  from  the  well  Byrgir, 
and  who  are  carrying  the  bucket  on  the  pole  between  them  to 
this  day.  Elsewhere  in  Europe,  Isaac  has  been  seen  carrying 
the  bundle  of  wood  up  Mount  Moriah  for  his  own  sacrifice,  and 
Cain  bringing  from  his  field  a  load  of  thorns  as  his  offering  to 
Jehovah.  Our  own  "  Man  in  the  Moon"  was  set  up  there  for 
picking  sticks  on  a  Sunday,  and  he,  too,  carries  his  thorn-bush, 
as  Caliban  had  seen,  "  I  have  seen  thee  in  her,  and  I  do  adore 
thee ;  my  mistress  showed  me  thee,  and  thy  dog  and  thy  bush." 
The  Selish  Indians  of  North-West  America  have  devised  their 
story  of  the  "  Toad  in  the  Moon;"  the  little  wolf  was  in  love 
with  the  toad,  and  pursued  her  one  bright  moonlight  night,  till, 

1  Schirren,  '  Die  Wandersagen  der  Neuseelancler  nnd  dcr  Mauimythos ; '  Riga, 
1356.  *  Ellis,  Polyn.  Ees.,  vol.  i.  p.  531. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS.  335 

for  a  last  chance  of  escape,  she  mads  a  desperate  spring  on  to 
the  face  of  the  moon,  and  there  she  is  still.  In  the  Samoan 
Islands  in  the  Central  Pacific,  the  dweller  in  the  moon  is  a 
woman.  Her  name  was  Sina,  and  she  was  beating  out  paper- 
cloth  with  a  mallet.  The  moon  was  just  rising,  and  looked  like 
a  great  bread-fruit,  so  Sina  asked  her  to  come  down  and  let  her 
child  have  a  bit  of  her.  But  the  moon  was  very  angry  at  the 
idea  of  being  eaten,  and  took  up  Sina,  child,  and  mallet  and  all, 
and  there  they  are  to  be  seen  to  this  day.1 

The  heavenly  bodies  are  gods  and  heroes,  and  tales  of  their 
deeds  in  love  and  arms  are  found  among  the  lower  as  among  the 
higher  races.  Apollo  and  Artemis,  Helios  and  Selene,  are  brother 
and  sister,  and  so  in  the  Polar  Regions  the  Sun  is  a  maiden  and 
the  Moon  her  brother.  The  Esquimaux  tale  tells  how,  when 
the  girl  was  at  a  festive  gathering,  some  one  declared  his  love  for 
her  by  shaking  her  by  the  shoulders,  after  the  manner  of  the  coun- 
try. She  could  not  tell  who  it  was  in  the  dark  hut,  so  she  smeared 
her  hand  with  soot,  and  when  he  came  back,  she  blackened  his 
face  with  her  hand.  When  a  light  was  brought,  she  saw  it  was 
her  brother,  and  fled,  and  he  rushed  after  her.  She  came  to  the 
end  of  the  earth  and  sprang  out  into  the  sky,  and  he  followed  her. 
There  they  became  the  Sun  and  Moon,  and  this  is  why  the  moon 
is  always  chasing  the  sun  through  the  heavens ;  and  the  moon  is 
sometimes  dark  as  he  turns  his  blackened  cheek  towards  the  earth.2 

The  natives  of  Van  Diemen's  Land,  whose  dismal  history  is 
now  closing  in  total  extinction,  are  among  the  lowest  tribes 
known  to  Ethnology.  Yet  to  them,  as  to  higher  races,  the 
idea  i-<  familiar  that  the  stars  are  men,  or  beings  of  a  higher 
order  who  have  appeared  as  men  on  earth.  Their  myth  of  the 
two  heroes  who  are  now  the  twin  stars  Castor  and  Pollux,  is  thus 
told  by  Milligan,  as  related  by  a  native  of  the  Oyster  Bay  Tribe : 

"  My  father,  my  grandfather,  all  of  them  lived  a  long  time 
ago  all  over  the  country ;  they  had  no  fire.  Two  black-fellows 
came,  they  slept  at  the  foot  of  a  hill, — a  hill  in  my  own  country. 

1  Grimm,  D.  M.,  pp.  679-83.  "Wilson,  'Indian  Tribes,'  in  Tr.  Eth.  ?oc.  vol.  iv. 
p.  304.  Turner,  'Polynesia,'  p.  247.  £ee  Mariner,  vol.  ii.  p.  127. 

;  Hayes,  'Arctic  Boat  Journey,'  p.  253.  Different  versions  in  Cranz,  p.  295, 
Tr.  Eth.  Soc.  vol.  iv.  p.  147. 


336  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS. 

On  the  summit  of  a  hill  they  were  seen  hy  my  fathers,  my 
countrymen,  on  the  top  of  the  hill  they  were  seen  standing : 
they  threw  fire  like  a  star, — it  fell  amongst  the  hlackmen,  my 
countrymen.  They  were  frightened, — they  fled  away,  all  of  them ; 
after  a  while  they  returned,  they  hastened  and  made  a  fire, — a 
fire  with  wood ;  no  more  was  fire  lost  in  our  land.  The  two 
black-fellows  are  in  the  clouds ;  in  the  clear  night  you  see  them 
like  two  stars.1  These  are  they  who  brought  fire  to  my  fathers. 

The  two  blackmen  stayed  awhile  in  the  land  of  my  fathers. 
Two  women  were  bathing;  it  was  near  a  rocky  shore,  where 
mussels  were  .  plentiful.  The  women  were  sulky,  they  were 
sad;  their  husbands  were  faithless,  they  had  gone  with  two 
girls.  The  women  were  lonely;  they  were  swimming  in  the 
water,  they  were  diving  for  cray-fish.  A  sting-ray  lay  concealed 
in  the  hollow  of  a  rock, — a  large  sting-ray  !  The  sting-ray  was 
large,  he  had  a  very  long  spear;  from  his  hole  he  spied  the 
women,  he  saw  them  dive :  he  pierced  them  with  his  spear, — 
he  killed  them,  he  carried  them  away.  Awhile  they  were  gone 
out  of  sight.  The  sting-ray  returned,  he  came  close  to  the 
shore,  he  lay  in  still  water,  near  the  sandy  beach ;  with  him 
were  the  women,  they  were  fast  on  his  spear, — they  were  dead  ! 

The  two  blackmen  fought  the  sting-ray ;  they  slew  him  with 
their  spears ;  they  lolled  him  ; — the  women  were  dead !  The 
two  blackmen  made  a  fire, — a  fire  of  wood.  On  either  side  they 
laid  a  woman, — the  fire  was  between  :  the  women  were  dead  ! 

The  blackmen  sought  some  ants,  some  large  blue  ants  ;  they 
placed  them  on  the  bosoms  of  the  women.  Severely,  intensely 
were  they  bitten.  The  women  revived, — they  lived  once  more. 

Soon  there  came  a  fog,  a  fog  dark  as  night.  The  two  black- 
men'  went  away,  the  women  disappeared :  they  passed  through 
the  fog,  the  thick  dark  fog !  Their  place  is  in  the  clouds.  Two 
stars  you  see  in  the  clear  cold  night ;  the  two  blackmen  are 
there, — the  women  are  with  them  :  they  are  stars  above." '' 

It  is  not  needful  to  accumulate  great  masses  of  such  tales  as 
these,  in  order  to  show  that  the  myth-making  faculty  belongs 
to  mankind  in  general,  and  manifests  itself  in  the  most  distant 

1  Castor  and  Pollux. 

3  Milligan,  Papers,  etc.,  of  R.  Soc.  of  Tasmania,  vol.  iii.  part  ii.  1859,  p.  274. 


GEOGRAPHICAL   DISTRIBUTION   OF   MYTHS.  337 

regions,  where  its  unity  of  principle  developes  itself  in  endless 
variety  of  form.  There  may  indeed  be  a  remote  historical  con- 
nexion at  the  root  of  some  of  the  analogies  in  myths  from  far 
distant  regions,  which  have  just  been  mentioned;  but  when 
resemblances  in  Mythology  are  brought  forward  as  proofs  of 
such  historical  connexion,  they  must  be  closer  and  deeper  than 
these.  Mythological  evidence,  to  be  used  for  such  a  purpose, 
requires  a  systematic  agreement  in  the  putting  together  of  a 
number  of  events  or  ideas,  which  agreement  must  be  so  close 
as  to  make  it  in  a  high  degree  improbable  that  two  such  com- 
binations should  have  occurred  separately,  or  at  least  the  tales 
or  ideas  found  alike  in  distant  regions  must  be  of  so  quaint  and 
fantastic  a  character  as  to  make  it,  on  the  very  face  of  the 
matter,  unlikely  that  they  should  have  been  invented  twice. 
But  it  is  both  easier  and  safer  to  appeal  to  the  effects  of 
known  intercourse  between  different  peoples  in  spreading  be- 
liefs and  popular  tales,  as  evidence  of  the  way  in  which  histo- 
rical connexion  really  docs  record  itself  in  Mythology,  than  to 
lay  down  a  priori  rules  as  to  what  the  effects  of  such  connexion 
ought  to  be. 

When  we  consider  how  short  the  time  is  since  the  Indians  of 
North  America  have  been  acquainted  with  guns,  the  fact  that 
there  has  been  recorded,  as  one  of  their  native  beliefs,  the  no- 
tion that  there  are  men  who  have  charmed  lives,  and  can  only 
be  killod  with  a  silver  bullet,  may  prepare  us  for  the  way  in 
which  savages  can  take  up  foreign  mythology  into  their  own. 
Again,  it  might  be  naturally  expected  that  Bible  stories  learnt 
from  missionaries,  settlers,  and  travellers,  should  pass  in  a  more 
or  less  altered  shape  into  the  folk-lore  of  savage  races.  Moiliit 
gives  a  good  instance  which  happened  to  himself.  He  had 
never  succeeded  in  finding  a  deluge-tradition  in  South  Africa, 
.but  making  inquiries  in  a  Namaqua  village,  he  came  upon  a 
somewhat  intelligent  native  who  had  one  to  tell,  so  he  began 
with  great  satisfaction  to  take  it  down  in  writing.  By  the  time 
it  was  finished,  however,  he  began  to  suspect,  for  it  bore  the 
impress  of  the  Bible,  though  the  Hottentot  declared  that  he  had 
received  it  from  his  forefathers,  and  had  never  seen  or  liciird 
of  a  missionary.  Mr.  Moffat  was  puzzled,  and  suspended  his 


338  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISTRIBUTION   OF   MYTHS. 

judgment  till,  a  little  while  afterwards,  the  mystery  was  un- 
ravelled by  the  appearance  of  the  very  missionary  from  whom 
the  native  story-teller  had  received  his  teaching.1  As  another 
case  of  the  same  kind,  may  he  quoted  the  following  servile 
version  of  the  story  of  Joseph  and  his  brethren,  found  in  Hawaii 
as  the  story  of  Waikelenuiaiku.  His  father  had  ten  sons  and 
one  daughter ;  he  was  beloved  by  his  father,  and  hated  by  his 
brethren,  and  they  threw  him  into  a  pit,  but  his  eldest  brother 
felt  more  compassion  for  him  than  the  rest.  He  escaped  out 
of  the  pit,  into  the  country  of  King  Kamohoalii,  and  there  he 
was  confined  in  a  dungeon  with  the  prisoners.  He  bade  his 
companions  dream,  and  interpreted  the  dreams  of  four  of  them. 
One  had  seen  a  ripe  banana,  and  his  spirit  ate  it,  the  next 
dreamt  of  a  banana,  and  the  next  of  a  hog,  in  the  same  way, 
but  the  fourth  dreamt  that  he  saw  aw  a,  that  he  pressed  out 
the  juice,  and  his  spirit  drank  it.  The  three  first  dreams  the 
foreigner  interpreted  for  evil,  and  the  dreamers  were  put  to 
d?ath  in  course  of  time,  but  to  the  fourth  he  prophesied  de- 
liverance and  life,  and  he  was  saved,  and  told  the  King,  who 
set  Waikelenuiaiku  at  liberty,  and  made  him  a  principal  chief  in 
the  kingdom.2 

There  is  sometimes  a  crudeness  about  these  tales  adopted 
from  foreign  sources,  which  gives  us  the  means  of  positively 
condemning  them.  But  the  power  which  myths  have  of  taking 
root  the  moment  they  are  transplanted  into  a  new  country, 
often  makes  it  impossible  to  tell  whether  they  are  of  old  date 
and  historical  value,  or  mere  modern  intruders.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  a  story  carried  into  a  distant  place  by 
civilized  men  may  spread  and  accommodate  itself  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  country,  so  that  in  a  very  few  years'  time  it 
may  be  quite  honestly  collected  as  a  genuine  native  tale,  even 
by  the  very  people  who  originally  introduced  it,  like  the  farmer's 
hack  that  he  sold  in  the  morning,  and  bought  back  in  the  af- 
ternoon with  a  fresh  mane  and  tail  as  a  new  horse.  Of  coarse 
this  is  the  same  kind  of  diffusion  of  myths  which  has  been 
going  on  from  remote  ages  among  mankind,  one  of  the  very 

1  Moffat,  'Missionary  Labours,  etc.,  in  S.  Africa;'  London,  1842,  p.  126. 
*  Hopkins,  'Hawaii  ;'  Lonuon,  1862,  p.  67. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS.  33!) 

processes  which  have  preserved  to  Ethnology  aids  of  such  high 
importance  for  the  reconstruction  of  early  history.  It  is  only 
unfortunate  that  its  results  in  modern  times,  by  confoundino- 
the  evidence  of  early  and  late  intercourse  between  different 
peoples,  have  done  so  much  to  impair  its  historical  value 

Among  the  stories  found  in  circulation  among  outlying  races, 
there  are  many,  beside  those  relating  to  a  Deluge,  which  appear 
to  be  really  united  by  ancient  and  deep -lying  bonds  of  con- 
nexion with  Biblical  episodes,  and  the  extreme  difficulty,  or 
impossibility,  of  separating  a  great  part  of  these  ancient  stories 
from  those  which  have  grown  up  in  modern  times  under 
Christian  influences,  is  a  very  serious  loss  to  early  history. 
Still  it  is  better  to  submit  to  this,  than  to  base  Ethnological 
arguments  on  evidence  that  will  not  bear  the  test  of  criticism. 
It  is  not  only  to  Scriptural  stories  that  this  objection  lies. 
Episodes  from  the  classics  and  other  European  sources  may  be 
carried  into  distant  lands  by  colonists  and  missionaries,  and  it 
may  be  laid  down  as  a  general  rule,  that  stories  which  may  have 
been  transplanted  in  this  way  in  modern  times,  must  be  rejected 
as  independent  evidence  of  remote  intercourse  between  distant 
races  among  whom  they  are  found.  It  is  when  a  connexion 
between  two  peoples  has  been  already  made  probable  by  evidence 
not  liable  to  be  tnus  impeached,  that  these  stories  can  be  taken 
into  consideration  as  secondary  evidence,  which,  once  proved  to 
be  safe,  may  be  of  extraordinary  interest  and  value. 

Before  proceeding  to  the  comparison  of  a  number  of  American 
myths  with  their  analogues  in  the  Old  World,  it  is  to  be  pre- 
mised that  the  view  of  a  connexion  between  the  inhabitants  of 
America  and  Asia  by  no  means  rests  on  one  of  those  vague 
and  misty  theories,  which  have  too  often  been  allowed  to  pass 
current  as  solid  Ethnological  arguments.  The  researches  of 
Alexander  von  Humboldt  brought  into  view,  half  a  century 
ago,  evidence  which  goes  with  great  force  to  prove  that  the 
civilization  of  Mexico  and  that  of  Asia  have,  in  part  at  least, 
a  common  origin,  and  that  therefore  the  population  of  these 
regions  are  united,  if  not  by  the  tie  of  common  descent  and 
relationship  by  blood,  at  least  by  intercourse,  direct  or  indirect, 

in  past  times.     Of  this  evidence,  the  similarity  of  the  chro- 

z  2 


340  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS. 

nological  calendars  is  perhaps  the  strongest  point.  Not  only 
are  series  of  names  like  our  signs  of  the  zodiac  used  to  re- 
cord periods  of  time,  but  such  series  are  combined  together,  or 
with  numbers,  in  both  countries,  in  a  complex,  perverse,  and 
practically  purposeless  manner,  which,  whatever  its  origin,  e;in 
hardly  by  any  stretch  of  probability  be  supposed  to  have  come 
up  independently  in  the  minds  of  two  different  peoples.  The 
theory  of  the  successive  destructions  and  renovations  of  the 
world,  at  the  end  of  long  cycles  of  years,  was  pointed  out  by 
Humboldt  as  another  bond  of  connexion  between  Mexico  and 
the  Old  World.  If  these  agreements  between  North  America 
and  Asia  are  to  be  read  as  indications  of  a  deep-rooted  con- 
nexion, this  ought  to  have  left  many  other  traces.  Of  customs, 
the  occurrence  of  which  in  America  as  well  as  in  the  Old 
World  would  be  well  explained  by  such  a  view,  something  has 
already  been  said.  Of  the  North  or  South  American  myths 
which  closely  resemble  tales  current  in  Asia,  Polynesia,  and  else- 
where in  the  world,  eight  are  discussed  here,  the  World-Tortoise, 
the  Man  swallowed  by  the  Fish,  the  Sun-Catcher,  the  Ascent  to 
Heaven  by  the  Tree,  the  Bridge  of  the  Dead,  the  Fountain  of 
Youth,  the  Tail-Fisher,  and  the  Diable  Boiteux. 

In  the  Old  World,  the  Tortoise  Myth  belongs  especially  to 
India,  and  the  idea  is  developed  there  in  a  variety  of  forms. 
The  Tortoise  that  uphold}  the  earth  is  called  in  Sanskrit 
Kurmardja,  "King  of  the  Tortoises,"  and  the  Hindus  believe 
to  this  day  that  the  world  rests  upon  its  back.  Sometimes  the 
snake  Sesha  bears  the  world  on  its  head,  or  an  elephant  carries 
it  upon  its  back,  and  both  snake  and  elephant  are  themselves 
supported  by  the  great  tortoise.  The  earth,  rescued  from  the 
deluge  which  destroys  mankind,  is  set  up  with  the  snake  that 
bears  it  resting  on  the  floating  tortoise,  and  a  deluge  is  again 
to  pour  over  the  face  of  the  earth  when  the  world-tortoise,  sink- 
ing under  its  load,  goes  down  into  the  great  waters.  When 
the  Daityas  and  Danavas  churned  the  Sea  of  Milk  to  make  the 
amrita,  the  drink  of  immortality,  they  took  the  mountain  Man- 
dara  for  the  churning-stick,  and  the  serpent  Vasuki  was  the 
thong  that  was  wound  round  it,  and  pulled  back  and  forwards 
to  drive  the  churn.  In  the  midst  of  the  milky  sea,  Yitilmu  him- 


GEOGRAPHICAL   DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS.  341 

self,  in  the  form  of  a  tortoise,  served  as  a  pivot  for  the  mountain 
as  it  was  whirled  around.1 

The  notion  of  the  earth  being  itself  a  great  tortoise  swimming 
in  the  midst  of  the  ocean,  is  thus  described  by  Reinaud : — 
"  According  to  Varaha-Mihira,  the  Indians  represented  to  them- 
selves the  inhabited  part  of  the  world  under  the  form  of  a  tor- 
toise floating  upon  the  water  ;  it  is  in  this  sense  that  they  call 
the  World  Kaurma-chakra,  that  is  to  say,  '  the  wheel  of  the  tor- 
toise.'" And  lastly,  the  ancient  Vedic  Books  of  India,  which 
so  often  supply  the  means  of  tracing  the  most  florid  developments 
of  mythology  back  to  mere  simple  child-like  views  of  nature, 
present,  as  really  existing  in  very  early  times,  the  original  idea 
out  of  which  the  whole  series  of  myths  of  the  World- Tortoise 
seems  to  have  grown.  To  man  in  the  lower  levels  of  science, 
the  earth  is  a  flat  plain  over  which  the  sky  is  placed  like  a  dome, 
as  the  arched  upper  shell  of  the  tortoise  stands  upon  the  flat 
plate  belov,-,  and  this  is  why  the  tortoise  is  the  symbol  and  repre- 
sentative of  the  world.  The  analogy  of  other  conceptions  of  heaven 
and  earth,  as  formed  by  the  two  halves  of  the  shell  of  Brahma's 
Egg,  or  by  the  two  calabashes  shut  together  in  the  mythology  of 
the  Yorubas  of  Africa,3  is  indeed  sufficient  to  lead  us  to  the 
opinion  that  this  was  the  original  meaning  of  the  World-Tortoise, 
but  the  following  passage  from  Weber  will  enable  us  to  substitute 
fact  for  inference.  "  The  earth  is  conceived  in  the  Catapatha 
Bralimana  as  the  under  shell  (adharam  kapalam)  of  the  Tortoise 
Kurma,  which  represents  the  Triple  World.  The  upper  shell  is 
the  sky,  the  body  lying  between  the  two  shells  is  the  atmosphere 
(nabhas,  antari-ksham)  which  connects  them."4 

1  Boehtlingk   &   Roth,  s.  v.  Kurma.     Wilson,  A',  v.  Kurmaraja.     Coleman,  p.  12. 
Vans  Kennedy,  'Researches;'    London,   1831,    pp.    216,24:}.     Holwell,    'Historical 
Event-,'  etc.;  London,  1766   7,  part  ii.  p.  109.      Falconer,  inProc.  Zool.  Soc.,  1844, 
p.    86.       See  Sir   W.    Jones,   in  As.    Res.    vol.  ii.  p.  119.     BakUeus,  in  Churchill's 
Voyages,  vol.  iii.  p.  848.     Wilson,  'Vishnu  Purana  ;'  London,  1S40,  p.  75.     W.  v. 
Humboldt  (Kawi-Spr.,  vol.  i.  p.  240)  says  with  reference  to  the  Naga  Padoha,  the 
great  snake  on  whose  three  horns  the  world  rests,— "  It  seems  to  me  not  unlikely, 
that  the  idea  of  a  world -bear ing  elephant   lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  whole  saga  [of 
the  snake,  that  is]  and  tl.at  the  double  meaning  of  Sanskrit  na-a,  elephant  and  snake, 
has  brought  confusion  into  the  story." 

2  Reinaud,  '  Mcmoire  sur  1'Inde  ;'  Paris,  1849,  p.  116. 
8  Pott,  '  Anti-Kaulen  ;'  Lemgo,  1863,  p.  68. 

4  Weber,    '  Indische  Siudien  ;'  Berlin,  1850,  etc.;  vol.  i.  p.  187.     See  also  p.  81. 


342  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS. 

There  is  a  curious  group  of  myths,  of  which  an  ancient  example 
is  preserved  in  the  Zend-Avesta.  The  hero,  Kere9aspa,  cooks 
his  food  in  a  cauldron  on  the  back  of  the  serpent  Cruvara,  on 
which  the  green  poison  flowed  of  the  thickness  of  a  thumb  ;  the 
burnt  monster  dashes  away,  and  returns  to  the  hurrying  waters. 
It  is  related  in  the  first  voyage  of  Sindbad,  that  he  and  his  com- 
panions came,  as  they  sailed  along,  to  an  island  like  one  of  the 
gardens  of  Paradise,  and  there  they  anchored  the  ship,  and  went 
ashore,  and  lighted  fires  to  cook  food.  But  the  island  was  a 
great  fish,  on  whose  back  sand  had  accumulated,  and  trees  had 
grown  from  times  of  old,  and  when  it  felt  the  fire  on  its  back,  it 
moved  and  went  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  This  story, 
which  may  be  also  found  in  Jewish  and  mediaeval  European 
literature,  seems  to  have  become  combined  with  the  tortoise- 
myth.  In  El-Kazwini's  account  of  the  animals  of  the  water, 
there  is  a  version  of  the  story,  which  describes  the  creature  as  a 
huge  tortoise;  "The  Tortoise,"  he  says,  "is  a  sea  and  land 
animal.  As  to  the  sea-tortoise,  it  is  very  enormous,  so  that  the 
people  of  the  ship  imagine  that  it  is  an  island.  One  of  the 
merchants  hath  related,  saying,  '  We  found  in  the  sea  an  island 
elevated  above  the  water,  having  upon  it  green  plants ;  and  we 
went  forth  to  it,  and  dug  [holes  for  fire]  to  cook ;  whereupon 
the  island  moved,  and  the  sailors  said,  Come  ye  to  your  place ; 
for  it  is  a  tortoise,  and  the  heat  of  the  fire  hath  hurt  it ;  lest  it 
carry  you  away ! — Tiy  reason  of  the  enormity  of  its  body,'  saith 
he  (i.e.  the  narrator  above  mentioned),  '  it  was  as  though  it  were 
an  island ;  and  earth  collected  upon  its  back  in  the  length  of 
time,  so  that  it  became  like  land,  and  produced  plants.'  "  It  is 
remarkable  that  a  similar  story,  of  a  monstrous  river-tortoise, 
has  been  found  among  the  Zulus.1 

I  may  mention  having  set  down  this  conception  as  the  probable  basis  of  the  Tortoise- 
myths  before  meeting  with  this  direct  evidence  from  ancient  India.  The  coincidence 
defends  such  an  interpretation  of  the  myths  from  the  charge  of  being  far-fetched  and 
fanciful. 

1  Avesta  (tr.  by  Spiegel  &  Bleeck)  Ya§na,  ix.  34.  Lane,  'Thousand  and  One 
Nights,' vol.  iii.  pp.  6,  79,  see  vol.  i.  p.  21.  Eisenmenger,  'Entdecktes  Jiulenthum,' 
Konigsberg,  1711,  part  i.  p.  399.  St.  Brandan,  ed.  T.  Wright,  London,  1MJ. 
Petri  Siculi  Hist.  Maniehreorum,  recog.  Gieseler,  (iottingen,  1840,  p.  34.  CaJlaway, 
'Zulu  Nursery  Tales,'  vol.  i.  pp.  2,  341. 


GEOGRAPHICAL   DISTR1 DUTION   OF   MYTHS.  843 

The  striking  analogy  between  the  Tortoise-myths  of  North 
America  and  India  is  by  no  means  a  matter  of  new  observation  ; 
it  was  indeed  remarked  upon  by  Father  Lafitau  nearly  a  century 
and  a  half  ago.1  Three  great  features  of  the  Asiatic  stories  are 
found  among  the  North  American  Indians,  in  the  fullest  and 
clearest  development.  The  earth  is  supported  on  the  back  of  a 
huge  floating  Tortoise,  the  Tortoise  sinks  under  water  and 
causes  a  deluge,  and  the  Tortoise  is  conceived  as  being  itself  the 
Earth  floating  upon  the  face  of  the  deep. 

In  the  last  century,  Loskiel,  the  Moravian  missionary,  re- 
marked of  the  North  American  Indians,  that  "  Some  imagine, 
that  the  earth  swims  in  the  sea,  or  that  an  enormous  tortoise 
carries  the  world  on  its  back."3  Schoolcraft,  an.  unrivalled 
authority  on  Indian  mythology  within  his  own  district,  remarks 
that  the  turtle  is  "an  object  held  in  great  respect,  in  all  Indian 
reminiscence.  It  is  believed  to  be,  in  all  cases,  a  symbol  of  the 
earth,  and  is  addressed  as  a  mother."  In  the  Iroquois  my- 
thology, there  was  a  woman  of  heaven  who  was  called  Atahentsic, 
and  one  of  the  six  men  of  heaven  became  enamoured  of  her. 
"\Yhen  it  was  discovered,  she  was  cast  down  to  earth,  and  received 
on  the  back  of  a  great  turtle  lying  on  the  waters,  and  there  she 
WHS  delivered  of  twins.  One  was  "  The  Good  Mind,"  the  other 
was  "  the  Bad  Mind,"  and  thus  the  two  great  powers  of  the 
Indian  dualism,  the  Good  and  Evil  Principle,  came  into  the 
world,  and  the  tortoise  expanded  and  became  the  earth,3  or,  as  it 
is  elsewhere  related,  the  otter  and  the  fishes  disturbed  the  mud 
at  the  bottom  of  the  ocean,  and  drawing  it  up  round  the  tortoise, 
formed  a  small  island,  which,  gradually  increasing,  became  the 
earth.4  Father  Charlevoix  gives  two  different  versions  of  the 
story.  In  one  place  it  is  Taronyawagon,  the  King  of  Heaven, 
who  gave  his  wife  so  mighty  a  kick  that  she  flew  out  of  tho  sky 
and  down  to  earth,  and  fell  upon  the  back  of  a  tortoise,  which, 
cleaving  the  waters  of  the  deluge  with  its  feet,  at  last  uncovered 
the  earth,  and  carried  the  woman  to  the  foot  of  a  tree,  where  she 
was  delivered  of  two  sons,  and  the  elder,  who  was  called  Tawis- 
karon,  killed  his  younger  brother.  In  another  place  the  story  is 

1  Lafitan,  vol.  i.  p.  99.  8  Loskiel,  Kirt  i.  p.  30.  8  Schoolcraft,  part  L 

pp.  390,  316.  4  Colcinan,  p.  15. 


344  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS. 

like  Schoolcraft's.1  Among  the  Maudans,  Catlin  found  a  leg^r.d 
which  brings  in  the  same  notion  of  the  World- tortoise,  but  shows 
by  the  difference  of  the  accessory  circumstances  that  it  was  not  in 
America  a  mere  part  of  a  particular  story,  but  a  mythological 
conception  which  might  be  worked  into  an  unlimited  variety  of 
myths.  The  tale  ihat  the  Mandan  doctor  told  Catlin,  was  that 
the  earth  was  a  large  tortoise,  that  it  carried  dirt  upon  its  back, 
and  that  a  tribe  of  people  who  are  now  dead,  and  whose  faces 
were  white,  used  to  dig  down  very  deep  in  this  ground  to  catch 
badgers.  One  day  they  stuck  a  knife  through  the  shell  of  the 
tortoise,  and  it  sank  and  sank  till  the  water  ran  over  its  back,  and 
they  were  all  drowned  but  one  man.2  The  North  American  idea 
that  it  is  the  movement  of  the  earth-tortoise  which  causes  earth- 
quakes, adds  the  last  touch  to  the  realism  of  the  whole  conception.3 

The  Myth  of  the  World-Tortoise  is  one  of  those  which  have 
this  great  value  in  the  comparison  of  Asiatic  and  American 
Mythology,  that  it  leaves  not  the  least  opening  for  the  supposi- 
tion of  its  having  been  carried  by  modern  Europeans  from  the 
Old  to  the  New  World.  But  it  is  to  be  seen,  even  from  the 
tales  which  have  just  been  quoted,  that  it  is  mixed  up  in  Ame- 
rica with  incidents  and  ideas  more  familiar  to  the  European 
mind ;  and  the  stories  told  only  with  reference  to  the  World- 
Tortoise  may  serve  to  give  a  glimpse  into  the  vast  ethnological 
field  which  lies  in  the  Red  Indian  traditions,  ready  to  be  worked. 
The  Deluge,  Cain  and  Abel,  Ahriman  and  Orrnuzd,  Romulus 
and  Remus,  all  have  their  analogies  among  the  legends  of  these 
wild  hunters.  In  the  story  which  Charlevoix  tells  just  before  that 
which  I  have  quoted,  there  is  Noah's  raven  and  Pandora's  casket. 

To  proceed  now  to  the  story  of  the  Man  swallowed  by  the 
Fish.4  It  is  related  in  the  Chippewa  tale  of  the  Little  Monedo, 
that  there  was  once  a.  little  boy,  of  tiny  stature,  and  growing  no 
bigger  with  years,  but  of  monstrous  strength.  He  had  done 
before  various  wondrous  feats,  and  one  day  he  waded  into  the 
lake,  and  called  "  You  of  the  red  fins,  come  and  swallow  me." 

1  Charlevoix,  vol.  vi.  pp.  146,  65.  *  Catlin,  vol.  i.  p.  181. 

8  J.  G.  Miiller,  '  Amerikanische  Drreligionen,'  pp.  61,  122. 

4  This  subject  has  since  been  more  fully  treated  by  the  author  iu  'Primitive 
Culture,'  chap.  ix. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION    OF  MYTHS.  345 

Immediately  that  monstrous  fish  came  and  swallowed  him,  and 
he,  seeing  his  sister  standing  in  despair  on  the  shore,  called  out 
to  her,  and  she  tied  an  old  mocassin  to  a  string,  and  fastened  it 
to  a  tree  near  the  water's  edge.  The  fish  said  to  the  hoy-man 
under  water,  "  What  is  that  floating  ?  "  The  boy-man  said  to 
the  fish,  "  Go  take  hold  of  it,  and  swallow  it  as  fast  as  you  can." 
The  fish  darted  towards  the  old  shoe,  and  swallowed  it ;  the 
boy-man  laughed  to  himself,  but  said  nothing  till  the  fish  was 
fairly  caught,  and  then  he  took  hold  of  the  line  and  hauled 
himself  to  shore.  When  the  sister  began  to  cut  the  fish  open 
she  heard  her  brother's  voice  from  inside  the  fish,  calling  to  her 
to  let  him  out,  so  she  made  a  hole,  and  he  crept  through,  and 
told  her  to  cut  up  the  fish  and  dry  it,  for  it  would  last  them  a 
long  while  for  food.1 

In  the  Old  World,  the  Hindoo  story  of  Saktideva  tells  that 
there  was  once  a  king's  daughter  who  would  marry  no  one  but 
the  man  who  had  seen  the  Golden  City,  and  Saktideva  was  in 
love  with  her  ;  so  he  went  travelling  about  the  world  seeking 
some  one  who  could  tell  him  where  this  Golden  City  was.  In 
the  course  of  his  journeys  he  embarked  on  board  a  ship  bound 
for  the  island  of  Utsthala,  where  lived  the  King  of  the  Fisher- 
men, who,  Saktideva  hoped,  would  set  him  on  his  way.  On  the 
voyage  there  arose  a  great  storm  and  the  ship  went  to  pieces, 
but  a  great  fish  swallowed  Saktideva  whole.  Then  driven  by 
the  force  of  fate,  the  fish  went  to  the  island  of  Utsthala,  and 
there  the  servants  of  the  King  of  the  Fishermen  caught  it,  and 
the  King  wondering  at  its  size  had  it  cut  open,  and  Saktideva 
came  out  unhurt,  to  pass  through  other  adventures,  and  at  last 
to  see  the  Golden  City,  and  to  marry,  not  the  Princess  only,  but 
her  three  sisters  beside.2 

The  analogy  of  these  curious  tales  with  the  leading  episode  of 
the  Book  of  Jonah  is  of  course  evident,  and"  it  might  at  first 
appear  as  though  this  very  ancient  story  were  possibly  the  direct 
origin  of  one  or  both  of  them  ;  as  regards  dates,  the  American 
story  has  been  but  recently  taken  down,  and  even  the  Hindoo 
tale  only  comes  out  of  a  mediaeval  Sanskrit  collection.  But 
both  agree  in  differing  from  the  history  of  Jonah,  in  the  fish 

*  Schoolcraft,  part  iii.  pp.  318-20.          2  Somadeva  Bhatta,  vol.  ii.  pp.  118-184. 


346  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS. 

being  cut  open  to  let  the  man  out.  Something  very  like  this 
occurs  in  the  myth  of  the  Polynesian  Sun-god  Maui.  He  was 
born  on  the  sea-shore,  and  his  mother  flung  him  into  the  foam 
of  the  surf ;  then  the  seaweed  wrapped  its  long  tangles  round 
him,  and  the  soft  jelly-fish  rolled  themselves  about  him  to  protect 
him  as  he  was  drifted  on  shore  again,  and  his  great  ancestor  the 
Sky,  Tama-nui-ki-te-Rangi,  saw  the  flies  and  the  birds  collected 
in  clusters  and  flocks,  and  ran  and  stripped  the  encircling  jelly- 
fish off,  and  behold  there  lay  within  a  human  being  ;  so  the  old 
man  took  the  child  and  carried  it  home.1  As  the  Polynesian 
Maui  is  among  the  clearest  and  completest  personifications  of 
the  Sun,  there  is  some  force  in  Schirren's  argument  that  this 
story  means  the  Sun  being  set  free  by  the  Sky  at  dawn,  from 
the  Earth  which  covers  him  at  night ; 2  for  it  must  be  remem- 
bered here  that  one  of  the  most  prominent  ideas  of  the  Polynesian 
Mythology  is  that  the  Earth  is  a  huge  fish,  which  Maui  draws 
up  with  his  line  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  and  that  Maui's 
death,  the  sunset,  is  told  in  the  story  of  his  creeping  into  the 
mouth  of  his  great  ancestress,  Hine-nui-te-po,  whom  you  may 
see  flashing,  and,  as  it  were,  opening  and  shutting,  where  the 
horizon  meets  the  sky  ;  there  Maui  crept  in,  and  perished.  And 
not  only  would  such  an  explanation  of  the  tale  of  the  R«d  Indian 
'  Tom  Thumb  '  be  a  fitting  one,  in  that  he,  like  so  many  personi- 
fications of  the  Sun  in  other  countries,  is  a  slayer  of  Giants,  but 
he  will  appear  a  few  pages  further  on  as  the  Sun- Catcher  in  a 
plain,  open  Solar  myth.  In  any  full  discussion  of  the  group  of 
tales,  it  would  be  necessary  to  investigate  their  correspondence 
with  the  European  stories  of  Tom  Thumb,  who  was  swallowed 
by  the  cow  and  came  out  unhurt,  and  of  Little  Bed  Riding-Hood, 
who  was  swallowed  whole  by  the  wolf,  and  came  out  alive  when 
the  hunter  cut  him  open.3 

In  the  next  myth,  that  of  the  Sun-Catcher,  the  Polynesian 
Sun-god  Maui  again  makes  his  appearance.  He  began  to  think 
that  it  was  too  soon  after  the  rising  of  the  sun  that  it  became 
night  again,  and  that  the  sun  again  sank  down  below  the 

1  Grey,  'Polynesian  Mythology,'  pp.  18,  81. 

*  Schirren,  pp.  143-44,  29.     But  the  legend  is  very  erroneously  given. 

*  J.  &  W.  Grimm,  'Miirchen,'  voL  L  pp.  142,  198,  28. 


GEOGRAPHICAL   DISTRIBUTION   OF   MYTHS.  347 

horizon,  every  day,  every  day  ;  so  at  last  he  said  to  his  brothers, 
"  Let  us  now  catch  the  sun  in  a  noose,  so  that  we  may  compel 
him  to  move  more  slowly,  in  order  that  mankind  may  have  long 
days  to  labour  in  to  procure  subsistence  for  themselves."  Then 
they  began  to  spin  and  twist  ropes  to  make  a  noose  to  catch  the 
sun  in,  and  thus  the  art  of  rope-making  was  discovered.  And 
Maui  took  his  enchanted  weapon,  which,  like  Samson's,  was  a 
jaw-bone,  the  jaw-bone  of  his  ancestress  Muri-ranga-whenua,  and 
lie  and  his  brothers  travelled  off  through  the  desert,  till  they 
caine  very  far,  very  far,  to  the  eastward,  to  the  very  edge  of  the 
place  out  of  which  the  sun  rises.  There  they  set  the  noose,  and 
at  last  the  sun  came  up  and  put  his  head  and  fore-paws  through 
it ;  then  the  brothers  pulled  the  ropes  tight  and  held  him  fast, 
and  Maui  rushed  at  him  with  his  magic  weapon.  Alas !  the 
sun  screams  aloud,  he  roars;  Maui  strikes  him  fiercely  with 
many  blows  ;  they  hold  him  for  a  long  time,  at  last  they  let  him 
go,  and  then,  weak  from  wounds,  the  sun  crept  slowly  along  its 
course.1  Another  version  of  the  story  was  taken  down  in  the 
Samoan  Islands.  There  was  once  a  man  who,  like  the  white 
people,  though  it  was  years  before  pipes,  muskets,  or  priests 
were  heard  of,  never  could  be  contented  with  what  he  had ;  pud- 
ding was  not  good  enough  for  him,  and  he  worried  his  family 
out  of  all  heart  with  his  new  ways  and  ideas.  At  last  he  set 
to  build  himself  a  house  of  great  stones,  to  last  for  ever ;  so  he 
rose  early  and  toiled  late,  but  the  stones  were  so  heavy  and  so 
far  off,  and  the  sun  went  round  so  quickly,  that  he  could  get  on 
but  very  slowly.  One  evening  he  lay  awake,  and  thought  and 
thought,  and  it  struck  him  that  as  the  sun  had  but  one  road  to 
come  by,  he  might  stop  him  and  keep  him  till  the  work  was 
done.  So  he  rose  before  the  dawn,  and  pulling  out  in  his  canoe 
as  the  sun  rose,  he  threw  a  rope  round  his  neck  ;  but  no,  the  sun 
marched  on  and  went  his  course  unchecked.  He  put  nets  over 
the  place  where  the  sun  rose,  he  used  up  all  his  mats  to  stop 
him,  but  in  vain  ;  the  sun  went  on,  and  laughed  in  hot  winds  at 
all  his  efforts.  Meanwhile  the  house  stood  still,  and  the  builder 
fairly  despaired.  At  last  the  great  Itu,  who  generally  lies  on 
his  mats,  and  cares  not  at  all  for  those  he  has  made,  turned 

1  Grey,  'Polynesian  Mythology,'  pp.  35-8. 


348  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS. 

round  and  heard  his  cry,  and,  because  he  was  a  good  warrior, 
sent  him  help.  He  made  the  facchere  creeper  grow,  and  again 
the  poor  man  sprang  up  from  the  ground  near  his  house,  where 
he  had  lain  down  in  despair.  He  took  his  canoa  and  made 
a  noose  of  the  creeper.  It  was  the  had  season,  when  the  sun  is 
dull  and  heavy ;  so  up  he  came,  half  asleep  and  tired,  nor 
looked  about  him,  but  put  his  head  into  the  noose.  He  pull  .1 
and  jerked,  but  Itu  had  made  it  too  strong.  The  man  built  his 
house — the  sun  cried  and  cried,  till  the  island  of  Savai  was 
nearly  drowned ;  but  not  till  the  last  stone  was  laid,  was  he 
suffered  to  resume  his  career.  None  can  break  the  facchere. 
It  is  the  Itu's  cord.1 

Other  versions  of  this  episode  in  the  great  Maui-myth  have 
been  taken  down  in  the  Pacific  Islands,2  and  a  like  variety  is 
found  in  the  corresponding  tales  from  North  America.  Among 
the  Ojibwas,  the  Sun-Catcher  is  evidently  the  same  personage  as 
the  Boy  swallowed  by  the  Fish  in  the  last  group  of  stories.  At 
the  time  when  the  animals  reigned  in  the  earth,  they  had  killed 
all  but  a  girl  and  her  little  brother,  and  these  two  were  living 
in  fear  and  seclusion.  The  boy  never  grew  bigger  than  a  little 
child,  and  his  sister  used  to  take  him  out  with  her  when  she 
went  to  get  food  for  the  lodge-fire,  for  he  was  too  little  to  leave 
alone  ;  a  big  bird  might  have  flown  away  with  him.  One  day 
she  made  him  a  bow  and  arrows,  and  told  him  to  hide  where  she 
had  been  chopping,  and  when  the  snow-birds  came  to  pick  the 
worms  out  of  the  wood,  he  was  to  shoot  one.  That  day  he  tried 
in  vain  to  kill  one,  but  the  next,  toward  nightfall,  she  heard  his 
little  footsteps  on  the  snow  ;  he  brought  in  a  bird,  and  told  his 
sister  she  was  to  take  off  the  skin  and  to  put  half  the  bird  at  a 
time  into  the  pottage,  for  till  then  men  had  not  begun  to  eat 
animal  food,  but  had  lived  on  vegetables  alone.  At  last  the  boy 
had  killed  ten  birds,  and  his  sister  made  him  a  little  coat  of  the 
skins.  "  Sistor,"  said  he  one  day,  "  are  we  all  alone  in  the 
world  ?  Is  there  nobody  else  living  ?  "  Then  she  told  him 
that  those  they  feared,  and  who  had  destroyed  their  relatives, 


1  Walpole,  '  Four  Years  in  the  Pacific,'  vol.  ii.  p.  37o. 

2  Turner,  'Polynesia.'  j.p.  "245,   24-<.     Tyerman  &  Bennet,  vol.  ii 
>L  L  p.  433.     EUis,  Polyn.  Res.,  vol.  ii.  p.  41o. 


1  Turner,  '  Polynesia.   \>p.  *24o,   24*.     Tyermai 
roL  L  p.  433.     EUis,  Polyn.  Res.,  vol.  ii.  p.  415 


'..  p.  40  ;  and  see 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS. 

lived  in  a  certain  part,  and  he  must  by  no  means  go  that  way ; 
but  this  only  made  him  eager  to  go,  and  he  took  his  bow  and 
arrows  and  started.  When  he  had  walked  a  long  while,  he  lay 
down  on  a  knoll,  where  the  sun  had  melted  the  snow,  and  fell 
fast  asleep  ;  but  while  he  was  sleeping  the  sun  beat  so  hot  upon 
him,  that  his  bird-skin  coat  was  all  singed  and  shrunk.  When 
he  awoke  and  found  his  coat  spoilt,  he  vowed  vengeance  against 
the  sun,  and  bade  his  sister  make  him  a  snare.  She  made  him 
one  of  deer's  sinew,  and  then  one  of  her  own  hair,  but  they 
would  not  do.  At  last  she  brought  him  one  that  was  right ;  he 
pulled  it  between  his  lips,  and,  as  he  pulled,  it  became  a  red 
metal  cord.  With  this  he  set  out  a  little  after  midnight,  and 
fixed  his  snare  on  a  spot  just  where  the  sun  would  strike  the 
land,  as  it  rose  above  the  earth's  disc,  and  sure  enough  he 
caught  the  sun,  so  that  it  was  held  fast  in  the  cord  and  did  not 
rise.  The  animals  who  ruled  the  earth  were  immediately  put 
into  a  great  commotion.  They  had  no  light.  They  called  a 
council  to  debate  upon  the  matter,  and  to  appoint  some  one  to 
go  and  cut  the  cord,  for  this  was  a  very  hazardous  enterprise,  as 
the  rays  of  the  sun  would  burn  whoever  came  so  near.  At  last 
the  dormouse  undertook  it,  for  at  this  time  the  dormouse  was 
the  largest  animal  in  the  world.  When  it  stood  up  it  looked 
like  a  mountain.  When  it  got  to  the  place  where  tbe  sun  was 
snared,  its  back  began  to  smoke  and  burn  with  the  intensity  of 
the  heat,  and  the  top  of  its  carcass  was  reduced  to  enormous 
heaps  of  ashes.  It  succeeded,  however,  in  cutting  the  cord  with 
its  teeth,  and  freeing  the  sun ;  but  it  was  reduced  to  a  very  small 
size,  and  has  remained  so  ever  since.1 

In  this  North  American  tale  we  have  the  Sun-Catcher  of  the 
South  Sea  Islands,  combined  with  part  of  our  own  Jack  and  the 
Beanstalk.  As  Jack,  in  spite  of  his  mother's  prayers,  goes  up 
the  ladder  that  is  to  take  him  to  the  dwelling  of  the  Giant  who 
killed  his  father,  so  the  boy  of  the  American  tale  will  not  heed  his 
sister's  persuasion,  but  goes  to  seek  the  enemies  who  had  slain 
his  kindred.  In  the  next  two  versions  also  from  North  America, 
the  incident  of  the  going  up  a  tree  to  the  country  in  the  sky,  as 
Jack  goes  up  his  beanstalk,  makes  its  appearance.  And  in  all 
Schoolcraft,  Oncota  ;'  New  York  and  London,  1S45,  p  75.  See  ante,  p.  ^19. 


350  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS. 

three,  the  loosing  of  the  imprisoned  sun  is  told  in  a  story  of 
which  the  European  fable  of  the  Lion  and  the  Mouse  might  he  a 
mere  moralized  remnant. 

In  the  story  found  among  the  Wyandots,  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  hy  the  missionary  Paul  le  Jeune,  it  is  related  that  there 
was  a  child  whose  father  was  killed  and  eaten  by  a  bear,  and  his 
mother  by  the  Great  Hare  ;  a  woman  came  and  found  the  child, 
and  adopted  him  as  her  little  brother,  calling  him  Chakabech. 
He  did  not  grow  bigger  than  a  baby,  but  he  was  so  strong 
that  the  trees  served  as  arrows  for  his  bow.  When  he  had 
killed  the  destroyers  of  his  parents,  he  wished  to  go  up  to 
heaven,  and  climbed  up  a  tree ;  then  he  blew  upon  it,  and  it 
grew  up  and  up  till  he  came  up  to  heaven,  and  there  he  found  a 
beautiful  country.  So  he  went  down  to  fetch  his  sister,  build- 
ing huts  as  he  went  down  to  lodge  her  in ;  brought  her  up  the 
tree  into  heaven,  and  then  broke  off  the  tree  low  down :  so  no 
one  can  go  up  to  heaven  that  way.  Then  Chakabech  went  out 
and  set  his  snares  for  game,  but  when  he  got  up  at  night  to 
look  at  them,  he  found  everything  on  fire,  and  went  back  to  his 
sister  to  tell  her.  Then  she  told  him  he  must  have  caught  the 
Sun,  going  along  by  night  he  must  have  got  in  unawares,  and 
when  Chakabech  went  to  see,  so  it  was;  but  he  dared  not  go 
near  enough  to  let  him  out.  But  by  chance  he  found  a  little 
Mouse,  and  blew  upon  her  till  she  grew  so  big  that  she  could 
set  the  Sun  free,  and  he  went  again  on  his  way ;  but  while  he 
was  held  in  the  snare,  day  failed  down  here  on  earth.1 

The  first  and  second  American  versions  of  the  Sun- Catcher 
come  from  near  the  great  lakes,  but  the  third  is  found  among 
the  Dog-Bib  Indians,  far  in  the  north-west,  close  upon  the 
Esquimaux  who  fringe  the  northern  coast.  When  Chape  wee, 
after  the  deluge,  formed  the  earth,  and  landed  the  animals  upon 
it  from  his  canoe,  he  "  stuck  up  a  piece  of  wood,  which  became 
a  fir-tree,  and  grew  with  amazing  rapidity,  until  its  top  reached 
the  skies.  A  squirrel  ran  up  this  tree,  and  was  pursued  by 
Chapewee,  who  endeavoured  to  knock  it  down,  but  could  not 

1  Le  Jeune  (1637)  in  '  Relations  des  Je"suites  Jans  la  Nouvelle- France  ;'  Quebec, 
1S58,  vol.  i.  p.  54.  Schoolcraft,  part  iii.  p.  320.  See  also  page  344,  in  the  present 
Chapter. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS.  351 

overtake  it.  He  continued  the  chase,  however,  until  he  reached 
the  stars,  where  he  found  a  fine  plain,  and  a  beaten  road.  In 
this  road  he  set  a  snare,  made  of  his  sister's  hair,  and  then  re- 
turned to  the  earth.  The  sun  appeared  as  usual  in  the  heavens 
in  the  morning,  hut  at  noon  it  was  caught  by  the  snare  which 
Chapewee  had  set  for  the  squirrel,  and  the  sky  was  instantly 
darkened.  Chapewee's  family  on  this  said  to  him,  '  You  must 
have  done  something  wrong  when  you  were  aloft,  for  we  no 
longer  enjoy  the  light  of  day.'  '  I  have,'  replied  he,  '  but  it  was 
unintentionally.'  Chapewee  then  endeavoured  to  repair  the 
fault  he  had  committed,  and  sent  a  number  of  animals  up  the 
tree  to  release  the  sun  by  cutting  the  snare,  but  the  intense  heat 
of  that  luminary  reduced  them  all  to  ashes.  The  efforts  of  the 
more  active  animals  being  thus  frustrated,  a  ground  mole, 
though  such  a  grovelling  and  awkward  beast,  succeeded  by 
burrowing  under  the  road  in  the  sky  until  it  reached  and  cut 
asunder  the  snare  which  bound  the  sun.  It  lost  its  eyes, 
however,  the  instant  it  thrust  its  head  into  the  light,  and  its 
nose  and  teeth  have  ever  since  been  brown,  as  if  burnt."  l 

In  former  editions  of  this  work  it  was  remarked  that  the  origin 
of  the  story  of  the  Sun-Catcher  is  not  yet  clear,  but  probably 
some  piece  of  unequivocal  evidence  will  be  found  to  explain  it. 
There  has  since  been  published  by  the  Rev.  W.  "YV.  Gill  a  ver- 
sion of  the  Maui-myth  from  the  Hervey  Islands,  which  looks  as 
though  it  might  be  this  expected  key.  Maui  plaited  six  great 
cocoa-nut  fibre  ropes  to  make  his  royal  nooses  to  catch  the  sun- 
god,  Ra ;  the  first  noose  he  set  at  the  opening  where  the  sun 
climbs  up  from  Avaiki,  the  under-world,  and  the  other  five  one 
after  another  further  on  in  the  sun's  path ;  as  Ra  came  up  in 
the  morning,  Maui  pulled  the  first  slip-knot,  which  held  him  by 
the  feet,  the  next  by  the  knees,  and  so  on,  till  the  last  noose 
closed  round  his  neck,  and  Maui  made  him  fast  to  a  point  of 
rock ;  then  Ra,  nearly  strangled,  confessed  himself  conquered, 
and  promised  henceforth  to  go  more  slowly  through  the  heavens, 
that  men  might  have  time  to  got  easily  through  their  work. 
"  The  sun-god  Ra  was  now  allowed  to  proceed  on  his  way ;  but 
Maui  wisely  declined  to  take  on0  these  ropes,  wishing  to  keep  Ra 
1  Richardson,  Narr.  of  Franklin's  Second  Exp. ;  London,  1S23,  p.  291. 


352  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS. 

in  constant  fear.  These  ropes  may  still  be  seen  hanging  from 
the  sun  at  dawn,  and  when  he  descends  into  the  ocean  at  night. 
By  the  assistance  of  these  ropes  he  is  gently  let  down  into 
Avaiki,  and  in  the  morning  is  raised  up  out  of  the  shades.  Of 
course  this  extravagant  myth  refers  to  what  English  children 
call  '  the  sun  drawing  up  water  ;  '  or,  as  these  islanders  still 
say  '  Tena  te  taura  a  Maui !  '  '  Behold  the  ropes  of  Maui !  '  "  1 
In  connexion  with  this  set  of  tales,  it  may  be  noticed  that 
there  are  to  be  found  in  the  Old  "\Yorld  ideas  of  the  sun  being 
bound  with  a  cord  to  hold  it  in  check.  In  North  Germany  the 
townsmen  of  Bosum  sit  up  in  their  church  tower  and  hold  the 
sun  by  a  cable  all  day  ;  taking  care  of  it  at  night,  and  letting  it 
up  again  in  the  morning.  In  Reynard  the  Fox,  the  day  is  bound 
with  a  rope,  and  its  bonds  only  let  it  come  slowly  on.  In  a 
Hungarian  tale  midnight  and  dawn  are  bound,  so  that  they  can 
get  no  farther  towards  men.2  This  notion  is  curiously  like  the 
Peruvian  story  of  the  Inca  who  denied  the  pretension  of  the  Sun 
to  be  the  doer  of  all  things,  for  if  he  were  free,  he  would  go  and 
visit  other  parts  of  the  heavens  where  he  had  never  been.  He 
is,  said  the  Inca,  like  a  tied  beast  who  goes  ever  round  and  round 
in  the  same  track.3  The  idea  is  renewed  by  "Wordsworth,  that 
"modern  ancient,"  as  Max  Miiller  so  truly  calls  him  : — 

*  Well  does  thine  aspect  usher  in  this  Day ; 
As  aptly  suits  therewith  that  modest  pace 

Submitted  to  the  chains 
That  bind  thee  to  the  path  which  God  ordains 

That  thou  shouldst  trace, 
Till,  with  the  heavens  and  earth,  thou  pass  away  ! " 

The  legend  of  the  Ascent  to  Heaven  by  the  Tree  has  just  been 
brought  forward  in  two  of  its  American  versions,4  taken  down  at 
periods  two  centuries  apart,  and  among  tribes  not  only  separated 
by  long  distance  but  speaking  languages  of  two  distinct  families, 

1  Rev.  W.  W.   Gill,    'Myths  and  Songs  from  the  South  Pacific,'  London,   IS  Til, 
p.  62  :  another  version,  p.  70,  mentions  Mam's  ropes  breaking,  till  a  noose  was  made 
of  his  sister's  hair,  as  in  the  American  story.     [Xote  to  3rd  Edition.] 

2  Bastian,  vol.  ii.  p.  58.      Grimm,  D.  M.,  p   706.      See  Steinthal,  '  Die  Sage  von 
Simson,'  in  Lazarus  &  Steinthal's  '  Zeitschrift  ;'  Berlin,  1862,  vol.  ii.  p.  141. 

a  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  part  i.  viii.   8.     See  also  Acosta,    Hist,    del  Nnevo  Orbe, 
chap.  v.  *  See  also  Schoolcraft,  part.  iii.  p.  547  ;  p.xrt  i.  plate  ^J'2,  p.  373. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS.  353 

and  yet  in  both  cases  embodying  also  the  story  of  the  Sun- 
Catcher.  A  further  examination  of  the  story  of  Jack  and  the 
Bean-Stalk,  and  the  analogous  tales  which  are  spread  through 
the  Malay  and  Polynesian  districts  and  North  America,  will 
bring  into  view  the  vast  ramifications  of  a  mythic  episode 
flourishing  far  and  wide  in  these  distant  regions,  though  so 
scaDtily  represented  in  the  folk-lore  of  Europe. 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  poor  widow,  and  she  had  one 
son,  and  his  name  was  Jack.  One  day  she  sent  him  to  sell  the 
cow,  but  when  he  saw  some  pretty- coloured  beans  that  the 
butcher  had,  he  was  so  delighted  that  he  gave  the  cow  for  them 
and  brought  his  prize  home  in  triumph.  When  the  poor  mother 
saw  the  beans  that  Jack  had  brought  home  she  flung  them  away, 
and  they  grew  and  grew  till  next  morning  they  had  grown  right 
up  into  the  sky.  So  Jack  climbed  up  sorely  against  his  mother's 
will,  and  saw  the  fairy,  and  went  to  the  house  of  the  giant  who 
had  killed  his  father,  and  stole  the  hen  that  laid  the  golden 
eggs,  and  did  various  other  wonderful  things,  till  at  last  the 
Giant  came  running  after  him  and  followed  him  down  the  bean- 
slalk,  but 'Jack  was  just  in  time  to  cut  the  ladder  through,  and 
the  wicked  Giant  tumbled  down  head  first  into  the  well,  and 
there  he  was  drowned. 

So  runs  the  good  old  nursery  tale  of  Jack  and  the  Bean- Stalk. 
That  it  is  found  in  England  and  yet  is  not  general  in  the  folk- 
lore of  the  rest  of  our  race  in  Europe  is  remarkable.  Mr. 
Campbell  says  it  is  not  known  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland, 
while  in  Germany  Wilhelm  Grimm  only  compares  it  with  two 
poor,  dull  little  stories,  one  a  version  distinctly  connected  wilh 
our  English  tale,  the  other  perhaps  so,  but  neither  worth  repeat- 
ing here.1 

In  another  American  tradition,  found  current  among  the 
Maiidans,  the  ascent  is  not  from  the  earth  to  the  sky,  but  from 
the  regions  underground  to  the  surface.  It  is  thus  related  in 
the  account  of  Lewis  and  Clarke's  expedition.  "  Their  belief  in 
a  future  state  is  connected  with  this  tradition  of  their  origin  : 
the  whole  nation  resided  in  one  large  village  underground  near 
a  subterraneous  lake  :  a  grape-vine  extended  its  roots  down  to 

1  J.  &  W.  Grimm,  'Miuciicn,'  vol.  ii.  p.  133;  vol.  iii.  pp.  193,  321. 

A  A 


354  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS. 

their  habitation  and  gave  them  a  view  of  the  light :  some  of  the 
most  adventurous  climbed  up  the  vine  and  were  delighted  with 
the  sight  of  the  earth,  which  they  found  covered  with  buffalo 
and  rich  with  every  kind  of  fruits  :  returning  with  the  grapes 
they  had  gathered,  their  countrymen  were  so  pleased  with  the 
taste  of  them  that  the  whole  nation  resolved  to  leave  their  dull 
residence  for  the  charms  of  the  upper  region  ;  men,  women,  and 
children  ascended  by  means  of  the  vine  ;  but  when  about  half 
the  nation  had  reached  the  surface  of  the  earth,  a  corpulent 
woman  who  was  clambering  up  the  vine  broke  it  with  her 
weight,  and  closed  upon  herself  and  the  rest  of  the  nation  the 
light  of  the  sun.  Those  who  were  left  on  earth  made  a  village 
below  where  we  saw  the  nine  villages ;  and  when  the  Mandans 
die  they  expect  to  return  to  the  original  seats  of  their  forefathers ; 
the  good  reaching  the  ancient  village  by  means  of  the  lake, 
which  the  burden  of  the  sins  of  the  wicked  will  not  enable  them 
to  cross."1 

The  set  of  Malayo-Polynesian  stories  which  tell  of  the  climb- 
ing from  earth  to  heaven  by  a  tree  or  vine-like  plant  is,  besides, 
a  good  illustration  of  the  unity  of  the  Island  Mythology  from 
Borneo  to  New  Zealand.  The  Dayak  tale  of  the  man  who  went 
up  to  heaven  and  brought  down  rice  has  been  already  cited.  It 
is  thus  told  by  Mr.  St.  John  : — "  Once  upon  a  time,  when  man- 
kind had  nothing  to  eat  but  a  species  of  edible  fungus  that 
grows  upon  rotting  trees,  and  there  were  no  cereals  to  gladden 
and  strengthen  man's  heart,  a  party  of  Dayaks,  among  whom 
was  a  man  named  Si  Jura,  whose  descendants  live  to  this  day  in 
the  Dayak  village  of  Simpok,  went  forth  to  sea.  They  sailed  on 
for  some  time,  until  they  came  to  a  place  at  which  they  heard 
the  distant  roar  of  a  large  whirlpool,  and,  to  their  amazement, 
saw  before  them  a  huge  fruit-tree  rooted  in  the  sky,  and  thence 
hanging  down  with  its  branches  touching  the  waves.  At  the 
request  of  his  companions,  Si  Jura  climbed  among  its  boughs 
to  collect  the  fruit  which  was  in  abundance,  and  when  he  was 
there  he  found  himself  tempted  to  ascend  the  trunk  and  find  out 
how  the  tree  grew  in  that  position.  He  did  so,  and  at  length 
got  so  high  that  his  companions  in  the  boat  lost  sight  of  him, 
1  Lewis  &  Clarke,  p.  139.  Catlin,  vol.  i.  p.  173.  See  Loskiel,  p.  31. 


GEOGRAPHICAL   DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS.  355 

and  after  waiting  a  certain  time  coolly  sailed  away  loaded  with 
fruit.  Looking  down  from  his  lofty  position,  Si  Jura  saw  his 
friends  making  off,  so  he  h-id  no  other  resource  but  to  go  on 
climbing  in  hopes  of  reaching  some  resting-place.  He  therefore 
persevered  climbing  higher  and  higher,  till  he  reached  the  roots 
of  the  tree,  and  there  he  found  himself  in  a  new  country — that 
of  the  Pleiades.  There  he  met  a  being  in  form  of  a  man,  named 
Si  Kira,  who  took  him  to  his  home  and  hospitably  entertained 
him.  The  food  offered  was  a  mess  of  soft  white  grains — boiled 
rice.  'Eat,'  said  Si  Kira.  'What,  those  little  maggots?'  re- 
plied Si  Jura.  '  They  are  not  maggots,  but  boiled  rice ; '  and 
Si  Kira  forthwith  explained  the  process  of  planting,  weeding, 
and  reaping,  and  of  pounding  and  boiling  rice.  ...  So  Si  Jura 
made  a  hearty  meal,  and  after  eating,  Si  Kira  gave  him  seed  of 
three  kinds  of  rice,  instructed  him  how  to  cut  down  the  forest, 
burn,  plant,  weed,  and  reap,  take  omens  from  birds,  and  celebrate 
harvest  feasts  ;  and  then,  by  a  long  rope,  let  him  down  to  earth 
again  near  his  father's  house."1 

In  the  Malay  island  of  Celebes,  the  episode  of  the  heaven- 
plant  occurs  in  a  story  no  doubt  derived  from  an  Arabic  source, 
its  theme  being  that  of  the  tale  of  Hassan  of  Bassora  in  the 
Arabian  Nights.2  Seven  heavenly  nymphs  came  down  from  the 
sky  to  bathe,  and  they  were  seen  by  Kasimbaha,  who  thought 
first  that  they  were  white  doves,  but  in  the  bath  he  saw  that 
they  were  women.  Then  he  stole  one  of  the  thin  robes  that 
gave  the  nymphs  their  power  of  flying,  and  so  he  caught  Utahagi, 
the  one  whose  robe  he  had  stolen,  and  took  her  for  his  wife,  and 
she  bore  him  a  son.  Now  she  was  called  Utahagi  from  a  single 
white  hair  she  had,  which  was  endowed  with  magic  power,  and 
this  hair  her  husband  pulled  out.  As  soon  as  he  had  done  it, 
there  arose  a  great  storm,  and  Utahagi  went  up  into  heaven. 

1  St  John,  Tol.  i.  p.  202. 

•  Lane,  '  Thousand  and  One  Nights  ;'  vol.  iii.  ch.  25.  The  early  occurrence  of 
this,  which  may  be  called  the  story  of  the  Swan-coat,  in  the  folk-lore  of  Northern 
Europe,  is  interesting.  Among  a  number  of  instances,  in  the  Volundarqvitha,  three 
women  sit  on  the  shore  with  their  swan-coats  beside  them,  ready  to  turn  into  swans 
and  fly  away.  Or  three  doves  fly  down  to  a  fountain  and  become  maidens  when  they 
touch  the  earth.  Wielant  takes  their  clothes  and  will  not  give  them  back  till  one 
be  his  wife,  etc.,  etc.  Grimm,  D.  M.,  pp.  393-1  '-'. 

A  A  2 


356  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS. 

The  child  cried  for  its  mother,  and  Kasimbaha  was  in  great 
grief,  and  cast  about  how  he  should  follow  Utahagi  up  into  the 
sky.  Then  a  rat  gnawed  the  thorns  off  the  rattans,  and  he 
clambered  up  by  them  with  his  son  upon  his  back  till  he  came 
to  heaven.  There  a  little  bird  showed  him  the  house  of 
Utahagi,  and  after  various  adventures  he  took  up  his  abode 
among  the  gods.1 

From  Celebes  to  New  Zealand  the  distance  is  some  four 
thousand  miles,  but  among  the  Maoris  a  tale  is  found  which  is 
beyond  doubt  connected  with  this.  There  was  once  a  great 
chief  called  Tawhaki,  and  a  girl  of  the  heavenly  race,  whose 
name  was  Tango-tango,  heard  of  his  valour  and  his  beauty  and 
came  down  to  earth  to  be  his  wife,  and  she  bore  a  daughter  to 
him.  But  when  Tawhaki  took  the  little  girl  to  a  spring  and  had 
washed  it,  he  held  it  out  at  arm's  length  and  said,  "  Faugh,  how 
badly  the  little  thing  smells."  When  Tango-tango  heard  this, 
she  was  bitterly  offended  and  began  to  sob  and  weep,  and  at  last 
she  took  the  child  and  flew  up  to  heaven  with  it.  Tawhaki  tried 
to  stop  her  and  besought  her  to  stay,  but  in  vain,  and  as  she 
paused  for  a  minute  with  one  foot  resting  on  the  carved  figure 
at  the  end  of  the  ridge-pole  of  the  house,  above  the  door,  he 
called  to  her  to  leave  him  some  remembrance  of  her.  Then  she 
told  him  he  was  not  to  lay  hold  of  the  loose  root  of  the  creeper, 
which  dropping  from  aloft  sways  to  and  fro  in  the  air,  but  rather 
to  lay  fast  hold  on  that  which  hanging  down  from  on  high  has 
again  struck  its  fibres  into  the  earth.  So  she  floated  up  into 
the  air  and  vanished,  and  Tawhaki  remained  mourning :  at  the 
end  of  a  month  he  could  bear  it  no  longer,  so  he  took  his  younger 
brother  with  him,  and  two  slaves,  and  started  to  look  for  his  wife 
and  child.  At  last  the  brothers  came  to  the  spot  where  the 
ends  of  the  tendrils  which  hung  down  from  heaven  reached  the 
earth,  and  there  they  found  an  old  ancestress  of  theirs  whose 
name  was  Matakerepo.  She  was  appointed  to  take  care  of  the 
tendrils,  and  she  sat  at  the  place  where  they  touched  the  earth, 
and  held  the  ends  of  one  of  them  in  her  hands.  So  next  day 
the  younger  brother,  Karihi,  started  to  climb  up,  and  the  old 

1  Schirren,  p.  126.  Compare  Bornean  story,  Bp.  of  Labuan  in  Tr.  Eth.  Soc. 
IS',3,  p.  27. 


GEOGRAPHICAL   DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS.  337 

woman  warned  him  not  to  look  down  when  he  was  midway 
between  heaven  and  earth,  lest  he  should  turn  giddy  and  fall, 
and  also  to  take  care  not  to  catch  hold  of  a  loose  tendril.  But 
just  at  that  very  moment  he  made  a  spring  at  the  tendrils,  and 
by  mistake  caught  hold  of  a  loose  one,  and  away  he  swung  to 
the  very  edge  of  the  horizon,  but  a  bftist  of  wind  blew  forth  from 
thence  and  drove  him  back  to  the  other  side  of  the  skies,  and 
then  another  gust  swept  him  heavenwards,  and  again  he  was 
blown  down.  Just  as  he  reached  the  ground  this  time  Tawhaki 
shouted  to  him  to  let  go,  and  lo,  he  stood  upon  the  earth  once 
more,  and  the  two  brothers  wept  over  his  narrow  escape  from 
destruction.  Then  Tawhaki  began  to  climb,  and  he  went  up 
and  up,  repeating  a  powerful  incantation  as  he  climbed,  till  at 
last  he  reached  the  heavens,  and  there  he  found  his  wife  and 
their  daughter,  and  they  took  her  to  the  water,  and  baptised  her 
in  proper  New  Zealand  fashion.  Lightning  flashed  from  Ta- 
whaki's  armpits,  and  he  still  dwells  up  there  in  heaven,  and 
when  he  walks,  his  footsteps  make  the  thunder  and  lightning 
that  are  heard  and  seen  on  earth.1 

There  are  other  mythological  ways  besides  the  Heaven-tree, 
by  which,  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  it  is  possible  to  go  up 
and  down  between  the  surface  of  the  ground  and  the  sky  or  the 
regions  below  ;  the  rank  spear-grass,  a  rope  or  thong,  a  spider's 
web,  a  ladder  of  iron  or  gold,  a  column  of  smoke,  or  the  rainbow. 
It  must  be  remembered  in  discussing  such  tales,  that  the  idea 
of  climbing,  for  instance,  from  earth  to  heaven  by  a  tree,  fan- 
tastic as  it  may  seem  to  a  civilized  man  of  modern  times,  is  in  a 
different  grade  of  culture  quite  a  simple  and  natural  idea,  and 
too  much  stress  must  not  be  laid  on  bare  coincidences  to  this 

1  Grey,  '  Polynesian  Mythology, '  p.  66,  etc.  Several  incidents  are  here  omitted. 
In  another  ver.-ion  Tawhaki  goes  up  not  by  the  creeper  but  upon  a  spider's  web. 
(Thomson,  N.  Z.,  vol.  i.  p.  111.  Yate,  p.  144.)  Other  stories  connected  with  this 
series  are  to  be  found  in  the  Samoan  group.  The  taro,  like  the  rice  in  Borneo,  is 
brought  down  from  heaven  ;  there  was  a  heaven-tree,  where  people  went  up  and 
down,  and  when  it  fell  it  stretched  some  sixty  miles ;  two  young  men  went  up  to 
the  moon,  one  by  a  tree,  the  other  on  the  smoke  of  a  fire  as  it  towered  into  the  sky 
(Turner,  p.  246).  In  the  Caroline  Islands,  another  of  these  Kairvo^drai  goes  up  to 
heaven  on  a  column  of  smoke  to  visit  his  celestial  father  |J.  R.  Forster,  Obs.  p.  600). 
In  the  Tonga  Islands,  Maui  makes  the  toa  grow  up  to  heaven,  so  that  the  god 
Etumatubua  can  come  down  by  it  (Schirren,  p.  76). 


338  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS. 

effect  in  proving  a  common  origin  for  the  stories  which  contain 
them,  unless  closer  evidence  is  forthcoming.  Such  tales  belong 
to  a  rude  and  primitive  state  of  the  knowledge  of  the  earth's 
surface,  and  what  lies  above  and  below  it.  The  earth  is  a  flat 
plain  surrounded  by  the  sea,  and  the  sky  forms  a  roof  on  which 
the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  travel.  The  Polynesians,  who  thought, 
like  so  many  other  peoples,  ancient  and  modern,  that  the  sky 
descended  at  the  horizon  and  enclosed  the  earth,  still  call 
foreigner s  papalangi,  or  "  heaven-bursters,"  as  having  broken  in 
from  another  world  outside.  The  sky  is  to  most  savages  what 
it  is  called  in  a  South  American  language,  mitmeseke,  that  is, 
the  "  earth  on  high  ;  "  and  we  can  quite  understand  the  thought 
of  the  Mbocobis  of  Paraguay,  that  at  death  their  souls  would  go 
up  to  heaven  by  the  tree  Llagdigua,  which  joins  earth  and  sky.1 
There  are  holes  or  windows  through  the  sky-roof  or  firmament, 
where  the  rain  comes  through,  and  if  you  climb  high  enough 
you  can  get  through  and  visit  the  dwellers  above,  who  look,  and 
talk,  and  live  very  much  in  the  same  way  as  the  people  upon 
earth.  As  above  the  flat  earth,  so  below  it,  there  are  regions 
inhabited  by  men  or  man-like  creatures,  who  sometimes  come  up 
to  the  surface,  and  sometimes  are  visited  by  the  inhabitants  of 
the  upper  earth.  We  live  as  it  were  upon  the  ground  floor  of  a 
great  house,  with  upper  storeys  rising  one  over  another  above 
us,  and  cellars  down  below. 

The  Bridge  of  the  Dead  is  one  of  the  well-marked  myths  of 
the  Old  World.  The  Zarathustrian  religion  recognizes  the 

1  Humboldt  &  Bonpland,  vol.  ii.  p.  276.  D'Orbigny,  '  L'Homme  AmSrieain  ; ' 
vol.  ii.  p.  102.  A  closely  related  version  of  the  heaven-tree  among  the  Guarayos, 
Martius,  'Ethnog.  Amer.,'  vol.  i.  p.  218.  The  following  are  to  be  added  to  the  group 
of  myths.  The  Waraus  of  the  Essequibo  district  lived  in  heaven  till  Okonorote  went 
after  a  shot  arrow  which  had  fallen  through  a  hole  in  the  sky  ;  seeing  the  earth  he 
made  a  rope  ladder  by  which  his  people  descended,  till  a  fat  one  stuck  in  the  hole  and 
made  return  impossible,  Bastian,  '  Rechtsverhaltnisse,' p.  291.  The  Ahts  of  Van- 
couver's Island  know  of  an  ascent  by  a  rope  to  a  region  above  the  earth,  Sproat. 
'Scenes  of  Savage  Life,'  London,  1868,  p.  176.  In  the  White  Nile  district,  the 
Kych  and  Bari  say  God  made  all  men  good,  and  they  lived  with  him  in  heavei.,  but 
as  some  of  them  turned  bad  he  let  them  down  by  a  rope  to  the  earth  ;  the  good 
could  climb  up  again  by  this  rope  to  the  sky,  where  there  was  dancing  and  beer  and 
all  was  joyous,  but  the  rope  broke  (or  a  bird  bit  it  through)  so  there  is  no  goins:  up  to 
Leaven  now ;  it  is  closed  to  men.  A.  Kaufmann,  'Gebiet  des  Weissen  Flusses,' 
Bmen,  1861,  p.  123.  ;Note  to  3rd  Edition.] 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS.  350 

bridge  Chinvat,  made  by  Ahura-Mazda,  whither  souls  of  the 
dead  on  their  way  to  give  account  of  their  deeds  in  life  must 
come,  the  good  to  pass  over,  the  wicked  to  fall  into  the  abyss  ;  to 
this  day  the  Parsi  declares  in  solemn  confession  of  his  faith, 
that  he  is  wholly  without  doubt  in  the  stepping  over  the  bridge 
Chinvat.1  Perhaps  it  was  from  this  Persian  source  that  the 
myth  found  its  way  into  Eabbinical  literature,2  and  into  the  ac- 
cepted belief  of  Islam.  Over  the  midst  of  the  Moslem  Hell 
stretches  the  bridge  Es-Sirat,  finer  than  a  hair,  and  sharper  than 
the  edge  of  a  sword.  There  all  souls  of  the  dead  must  pass 
along,  but  while  the  good  reach  the  other  side  in  safety,  the 
wicked  fall  off  into  the  abyss.3 

In  Scandinavian  mythology,  the  bridge  on  the  Hell- way,  where 
the  pale  unsubstantial  dead  ride  over  the  river  Gjoll,  is  part  and 
parcel  of  the  myth  of  Baldur  in  the  Prose  Edda.4  But  it  seems 
rather  from  the  Oriental  group  just  described,  that  the  ideas  of 
the  bridge  in  Christian  Europe  had  their  source.  The  "  Brig  of 
Dread,  na  brader  than  a  thread,"  sung  of  in  the  grand  old  Lyke- 
AVake  Dirge  of  our  North  Country,5  was  a.  recognized  part  of  the 
architecture  of  Purgatory  and  Hell,  to  be  seen  and  even  passed 
over  by  the  ecstatic  explorers  whose  visions  of  the  future  state  were 
a  staple  commodity  of  pious  literature  in  the  middle  ages.  It  is 
thus  described  when  Owayue  Miles,  one  of  King  Stephen's 
Knights,  descends  into  St.  Patrick's  Purgatory  : — 

«*  Over  the  water  a  brygge  there  was, 
Forsothe  kenere  than  ony  glasce  : 
Hit  was  narowe  and  hit  was  hyge, 
Onethc  that  other  end  he  syge. 
The  mydylle  was  hyg  •,  the  ende  was  lowe, 
Hit  ferde  as  hit  hadde  ben  a  bent  bo  we. 
The  develle  sayde, '  Knyghte,  here  may  thu  se 
Into  helle  the  rygte  entre  : 
Over  thys  brygge  thu  meste  wende, 
Wynde  and  rayne  we  shulle  the  sende  : 
We  shulle  the  sende  wynde  full  gor-de, 
That  shall  the  caste  ynto  the  floode.'  " 

1  Avesta,  tr.  by  Spiegel  &  Bleeck,  vol.  i.  p.  141,  vol.   ii.  p.  14,  vol.  iiL  p.  163  ; 
Alger,  'Doctrine  of  a  Future  Life  ;'  New  York,  18G6,  p.  136. 

2  Eisenmenger,  '  Entd.  Judenthum  ;'  part  ii.  p.  258. 

3  Lane,  Mod.  Eg.,  vol.  i.  p.  95. 

4  Prose  Kckla  :  Gvlfuginning,  49.     Grimm,  D.  M.,  p.  794. 

5  .Brand,  i'op.  Aut.,  vol.  ii.  p.  275. 


SCO  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS. 

But  Owayne  with  prayer  passed  safely  over  and  reached  the 
Earthly  Paradise  on  the  other  side.1  The  adaptation  of  the 
myth  in  Paradise  Lost  is  too  familiar  to  be  quoted. 

Looking  to  the  far  East,  we  find  in  the  Hinduized  and 
Islamized  mythology  of  Java  the  bridge  which  leads  across  the 
abyss  to  the  single  opening  in  the  stone  wall  round  Suralaya, 
the  dwelling  of  the  gods  ;  off  this  bridge  the  evildoers  fall  into 
the  depths  below.2  Other  myths  from  this  region  have  more 
special  and  seemingly  more  local  character.  The  conception  of 
a  bridge  being  needed  for  the  passage  of  souls  is  well  shown 
among  the  Karens  of  Birmah,  who  at  this  day  tie  strings  across 
the  rivers  for  the  ghosts  of  the  dead  to  pass  over  to  their  graves ; 
among  these  people  the  Heaven-bridge  is  a  sword,  those  who 
cross  it  become  men,  those  who  dare  not,  women.3  And  among 
the  Idaan  of  Borneo,  the  passage  for  men  into  paradise  is  across 
a  long  tree,  which  to  those  who  have  not  killed  a  man  is  scarcely 
practicable.4 

In  America,  the  bridge  over  the  abyss  is  distinct  in  native 
mythology.  The  Greenland  angekok,  when  he  has  passed 
through  the  land  of  souls,  has  to  cross  an  awful  gulf  over  a 
stretched  rope,  his  guardian  spirit  holding  him  by  the  hand,  till 
he  reaches  the  abode  of  the  great  female  Evil  Spirit  below  the 
sea.5  Among  the  North  American  Indians  the  Ojibwa  soul  has 
to  cross  the  river  of  death  on  the  great  snake  which  serves  as  a 
bridge,6  while  the  Minnetarees,  in  their  way  to  the  mansions  of 
their  ancestors  after  death,  have  to  cross  a  narrow  footing  over  a 
rapid  river,  where  the  good  warriors  and  hunters  pass,  but  the 
worthless  ones  fall  in.7  Catlin's  account  of  the  Choctaw  belief  is 
as  follows : — "  Our  people  all  believe  that  the  spirit  lives  in  a 
future  state ;  that  it  has  a  great  distance  to  travel  after  death 
towards  the  west — that  it  has  to  cross  a  dreadful  deep  and  rapid 
stream,  which  is  hemmed  in  on  both  sides  by  high  and  rugged 
hills — over  this  stream,  from  hill  to  hill,  there  lies  a  long  and 

1  T.  Wright,  'St.  Patrick's  Purgatory  ;'  London,  1844,  p.  74,  and  elsewhere. 

2  Schirren,  pp.  122,  125.     For  China,  see  Doolittle,  'Social  Life  of  the  Chinese  ;' 
Tol.  i.  p.  173. 

3  Mrs.  Mason,  p.  73  ;  Mason  in  Journ.  As.  Soc.  Bengal,  1865,  part  ii.  p.  197. 

4  Journ.  Ind.  Archip.  vol.  iii.  p.  557.  *  Cranz,  Gronland,  p.  264. 

•  Keating,  voL  ii.  p.  154.  1  Long's  Exp.,  voi.  i.  p.  280. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS.  361 

slippery  pine-log,  with  the  bark  peeled  off,  over  which  the  dead 
have  to  pass  to  the  delightful-hunting  grounds.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  stream  there  are  six  persons  of  the  good  hunting- 
grounds  with  rocks  in  their  hands,  which  they  throw  at  them  all 
when  they  are  on  the  middle  of  the  log.  The  good  walk  on 
safely  to  the  good  hunting-grounds  .  .  .  The  wicked  see  the 
stones  coming,  and  try  to  dodge,  by  which  they  fall  down  from 
the  log,  and  go  thousands  of  feet  to  the  water,  which  is  dashing 
over  the  rocks."1  In  the  interior  of  South  America  the  idea 
appears  again  among  the  Manacicas.  Among  these  people,  the 
Maponos  or  priests  performed  a  kind  of  baptism  of  the  dead,  and 
were  then  supposed  to  mount  into  the  air,  and  carry  the  soul  to 
the  Land  of  the  Departed.  After  a  weary  journey  of  many  days 
over  hills  and  vales,  through  forests,  and  across  rivers  and 
swamps  and  lakes,  they  came  to  a  place  where  many  roads  met, 
near  a  deep  and  wide  river,  where  the  god  Tatusiso  stood  night 
and  day  upon  a  wooden  bridge  to  inspect  all  such  travellers.  If 
he  did  not  consider  the  sprinkling  after  death  a  sufficient  purga- 
tion of  the  sins  of  the  departed,  he  would  stop  the  priest,  that 
the  soul  he  carried  might  be  further  cleansed,  and  if  resistance 
were  made,  would  sometimes  seize  the  unhappy  soul  and  throw 
him  into  the  river,  and  when  this  happened  some  calamity  would 
follow  among  the  Manacicas  at  home.2 

The  Bridge  of  the  Dead  may  possibly  have  its  origin  in  the 
rainbow.  Among  the  Northmen  the  rainbow  is  to  be  seen  in 
the  bridge  Bifrost  of  the  three  colours,  over  which  the  ,Esir 
make  their  daily  journey,  and  the  red  in  it  is  fire,  for  were  it 
easy  to  pass  over,  the  Frost-giants  and  the  Mountain-giants 
would  get  across  it  into  heaven.  In  a  remark,  evidently  belong- 
ing to  the  North  American  story  of  the  Sun- Catcher,  the  rainbow 
replaces  the  tree  up  which  the  mouse  climbs  and  gnaws  loose  a 
captive  in  the  sky.3  The  rainbow  is  a  ladder  by  which  New 
Zealand  chiefs  climb  to  heaven,  and  by  it  the  souls  of  the  Philip- 
pine islanders  who  died  violent  deaths  were  carried  to  the  happy 

1  Catlin,  vol.  ii.  p.  127.     See  J.  G.  Miiller,  Amer.  Urrelig.  pp.  87,  286. 
'  Southey,  'Brazil,'  vol.  iii.  p.  186. 

3  Schoolcraft  in  Pott,    '  Ungleichlieit  der  llensch lichen  Eassen;'    Lemgo,  1856, 
p.  267. 


3G2  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS. 

state.1  The  Milky  Way,  which  among  the  North  American 
Indians  is  the  road  of  souls  to  the  other  world,  has  also  a  claim 
to  be  considered.2  As  in  the  Old  World,  so  in  the  New,  the 
Bridge  of  the  Dead  is  but  an  incident,  sometimes,  but  not 
always  or  even  mostly,  introduced  into  a  wider  belief  that  after 
death  the  soul  of  man  comes  to  a  great  gulf  or  stream,  which  it 
has  to  pass  to  reach  the  country  that  lies  beyond  the  grave. 
The  Mythology  of  Polynesia,  though  it  wants  the  Bridge, 
develops  the  idea  of  the  gulf  which  the  souls  have  to  pass,  in 
canoes  or  by  swimming,  into  a  long  series  of  myths.3  It  is  not 
needful  to  enter  here  into  details  of  so  well-known  a  feature  of 
the  Mythology  of  the  Old  World,  where  the  Vedic  Yama,  King 
of  the  Dead,  crossed  the  rapid  waters  and  showed  the  way  to  our 
Aryan  fathers ;  where  the  modern  Hindu  hopes  by  grasping  the 
cow's  tail  at  death  to  be  safely  ferried  over  the  dreadful  river 
Vaitarani;  where  Charon  and  his  boat,  the  procession  of  the  dcml 
by  water  to  their  long  home  in  modern  Brittany  as  in  ancient 
Egypt,  the  setting  afloat  of  the  Scandinavian  heroes  in  burning 
ships  or  burying  them  in  boats  on  shore,  are  all  instances  of  its 
prevalence.  In  barbaric  districts,  myths  of  the  river  of  death 
may  be  instanced  alike  among  the  Finns  and  the  Guinea  negroes, 
among  the  Khonds  of  Orissa  and  the  Dayaks  of  Borneo.4  In 
North  America  we  hear  sometimes  of  the  bridge,  but  sometimes 
the  water  must  be  passed  in  canoes.  The  souls  come  to  a  great 
lake  where  there  is  a  beautiful  island,  towards  which  they  have 
to  paddle  in  a  canoe  of  white  shining  stone.  On  the  way  there 
arises  a  storm,  and  the  wicked  souls  are  wrecked,  and  the  heaps 
of  their  bones  are  to  be  seen  under  water,  but  the  good  reach 
the  happy  island.5  So  Charlevoix  speaks  of  the  souls  that  are 
shipwrecked  in  crossing  the  river  which  they  have  to  pass  on 
their  long  journey  toward  the  west,6  and  with  this  belief  the 
canoe-burial  of  the  North- West  and  of  Patagonia  hangs  together. 

1  Polack.  N.  Z.,  vol.  i.  p.  273.     Meiners,  vol.  i.  p.  302. 
*  Le  Jeune  (1634),  p.  63. 

3  Williams,  'Fiji,'  voL  i.  pp.  244,  205.     Schirren,  pp.  93,  110,  etc. 

4  Castren,  p.  129,  etc.      Bosman,  Guinea,   in  Pinkerton,  vol.  xvi.  p.  401.     Hie- 
pherson,  p.  92.     Journ.  Ind.  Archip.,  vol.  i.  p.  31. 

5  Schoolcraft,  part  i.  p.  321.     Mackenzie,  p.  cxix. 

6  Charlevoix,  vol.  vi.  p.  76. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS.  363 

How  the  souls  of  the  Ojibwas  cross  the  deep  and  rapid  water  to 
reach  the  land  of  bliss,1  and  the  souls  of  the  Mandans  travel  on 
the  lake  by  which  the  good  reach  their  ancient  village,  while  the 
wicked  cannot  get  across  for  the  burden  of  their  sins,2 1  do  not 
know ;  but,  like  the  Heaven-Bridge,  the  Heaven-Gulf  which  has 
to  be  passed  on  the  way  to  the  Land  of  Spirits,  has  a  claim  to 
careful  discussion  in  the  general  argument  for  the  proof  of  his- 
torical connexion  from  Analogy  of  Myths.3 

The  Fountain  of  Youth  is  known  to  the  Mythology  of  India. 
The  Acvinas  let  the  husband  of  Sukanya  go  into  the  lake, 
whence  the  bather  comes  forth  as  old  or  as  young  as  he  may 
choose  ;  and  elsewhere  the  "  ageless  river,"  rijard  nad'i,  makes 
the  old  young  again  by  only  seeing  it,  or  perhaps  by  bathing  in 
its  waters.4  Perhaps  it  is  this  fountain  that  Sir  John  Mauu- 
devile  tells  of  early  in  the  fourteenth  century  somewhere  about 
India.  ''Also  toward  the  heed  of  that  Forest  is  the  Cytee  of 
Polombe.  And  above  the  Cytee  is  a  grete  Mountayne,  that  also 
is  clept  Polombe ;  and  of  that  Mount  the  Cytee  hathe  his  name. 
And  at  the  Foot  of  that  Mount,  is  a  fayr  Welle  and  a  gret,  that 
nathe  odour  and  savour  of  alle  Spices ;  and  at  every  hour  of 
the  day,  he  chaungethe  his  odour  and  his  savour  dyversely. 
And  whoso  drynkethe  3  tymes  fasting  of  that  Watre  of  that 
Welle,  he  is  hool  of  alle  maner  sykenesse,  that  he  hathe.  And 
thei  that  dwellen  there  and  drynken  often  of  that  Welle,  thei 
nevere  han  Sekenesse,  and  thei  semen  alle  ways  5onge.  I  have 
dronken  there  of  3  or  4  sithes ;  and  5it,  methinkethe,  I  fare  the 
better.  Sum  men  clepen  it  the  Welle  of  southe :  for  thei  that 
often  drynken  there  of,  semen  alle  weys  Songly,  and  lyven  with 
outen  Sykenesse.  And  men  seyn,  that  that  Welle  cometh  out 
of  Paradys  :  and  therfore  it  is  so  vertuous."5 

When  Cambyses  sent  the  Fish-Eaters  to  spy  out  the  condition 
of  the  long-lived  Ethiopians,  and  the  messengers  wondered  to 
hear  that  they  lived  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  or  more,  the 
Ethiopians  took  them  to  a  fountain,  where,  when  they  had 

1  Schoolcraft,  part  ii.  p.  135.  2  Lewis  &  Clarke,  p.  139. 

3  For  further  remarks  on  these  subjects,   see  Tylor,   '  Primitive  Culture,'  chaps. 
xii. -xiv.     [Xote  to  3rd  Edition.] 

4  Kuhn,  pp.  128,  12. 

*  'The  Yoia-e  and  Truvaile  of  Sir  John  Maundevile,  Kt, ;'    London,  1725,  p.  204. 


364  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS. 

bathed,  their  bodies  shone  as  if  they  had  been  oiled,  and  smelt 
like  the  scent  of  violets.1  In  Europe,  too,  stories  of  miraculously 
healing  fountains  have  long  been  current.2  The  Moslem  geo- 
grapher Ibn-el-Wardi  places  the  Fountain  of  Life  in  the  dark 
south-western  regions  of  the  earth.  El-Khidr  drank  of  it,  and 
will  live  till  the  day  of  judgment ;  and  Ilyas  or  Elias,  whom 
popular  belief  mixes  not  only  with  El-Khidr,  but  also  with  St. 
George,  the  Dragon- slayer,  has  drunk  of  it  likewise.3  Farther 
east,  the  idea  is  to  be  found  in  the  Malay  islands.  Batara  Gun 
drinks  from  a  poisonous  spring,  but  saves  himself  and  the  rest 
of  the  gods  by  finding  a  well  of  life  ;  and  again,  Nurtjaja  compels 
the  pandit  Kabib,  the  guardian  of  the  caverns  below  the  earth, 
where  flows  the  spring  of  immortality,  to  let  him  drink  of  its 
waters,  and  even  to  take  some  for  his  descendants.4  In  the 
Hawaiian  legend,  Kamapiikai,  "  the  child  who  runs  over  the 
sea,"  goes  with  forty  companions  to  Tahiti  (Kahiki,  that  is  to 
say,  to  the  land  far  away),  and  brings  back  wondrous  tales  of 
Haupokane,  "  the  belly  of  Kane,"  and  of  the  wai  ora,  waiola, 
"water  of  life,"  wai  ora  roa,  "water  of  enduring  life,"  which 
removes  all  sickness,  deformity,  and  decrepitude  from  those  who 
plunge  beneath  its  waters.6  It  is  perhaps  to  this  story  of  the 
Sandwich  Islands  that  Turner  refers,  when  he  says  that  some 
South  Sea  islanders  have  traditions  of  a  river  in  the  spirit-world 
called  "Water  of  Life,"  which  makes  the  old  young  again,  and 
they  return  to  earth  to  live  another  life.6 

One  easy  explanation  of  the  Fountain  of  Youth  suggests 
itself  at  the  first  glance.  Every  islander  who  can  see  the  sun  go 
down  old,  faint,  and  weary  into  the  western  sea,  to  rise  young 
and  fresh  from  the  waters,  has  the  Fountain  of  Youth  before 
'  him  ;  and  this  explanation  of  several,  at  least,  of  the  stories  is 
strengthened  by  their  details,  as  when  the  fountain  is  described 
as  flowing  in  the  regions  below,  or  in  the  belly  of  Kane,  where 
the  boy  who  climbs  over  the  sea  goes  to  it ;  or  when,  like  the 
dying  and  reviving  sun,  Batara  Guru  is  poisoned,  but  finds  the 

1  Herod,  iii.  c.  23.  J  Grimm,  D.  M.,  p.  554.     Perty,  p.  149. 

8  Lane,  '  Thousand  and  One  Nights,'  vol.  i.  p.  20.  See  Bastian,  vol.  ii.  pp.  1 53, 
371.  4  Schirren,  p.  124. 

6  Schirren,  p.  80.  Ellis,  Polyn.  Res.  vol.  ii.  p.  47.  Ellis,  '  Hawaii ;'  London, 
IS 27,  p.  399.  6  Turner,  p.  353. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS.  3uo 

reviving  water,  and  is  cured ; l  or  when  the  Moslem  associates 
the  drinking  from  the  fountain  with  Elijah  of  the  chariot  of  fire 
and  horses  of  fire,  or  with  St.  George,  the  favourite  medieval 
bearer  of  the  great  Sun-myth.  Without  further  discussing  the 
origin  of  these  myths,  it  may  suffice  to  point  out  their  occur- 
rence in  the  New  World.  The  Aleutian  islanders  had  their 
legend  that  in  the  early  times  men  were  immortal,  and  when 
they  grew  old  had  but  to  spring  from  a  high  mountain  into  a 
lake  whence  they  came  forth  in  renewed  youth.  In  the  West 
Indies,  early  in  the  sixteenth  century,  Gomara  relates  that  Juan 
Ponce  de  Leon,  having  his  government  taken  from  him,  and 
thus  finding  himself  rich  and  without  charge,  fitted  out  two 
caravels,  and  went  to  seek  for  the  island  of  Boyuca,  where  the 
Indians  said  there  was  the  fountain  that  turned  old  men  back 
into  youths  (a  perennial  spring,  says  Peter  Martyr,  so  noble  that 
the  drinking  of  its  waters  made  old  men  young  again).  For  six 
months  he  went  lost  and  famishing  among  many  islands,  but  of 
such  a  fountain  he  found  no  trace.  Then  he  came  to  Birnmi, 
and  discovered  Florida  on  Pascua  Florida  (Easter  Sunday), 
wherefrom  he  gave  the  country  its  name.2 

To  proceed  now  to  the  story  of  the  Tail-Fisher.  Dr.  Dasent, 
who,  in  his  admirable  Introduction  to  the  Norse  Tales,  has 
taken  the  lead  in  the  extension  of  the  argument  from  Compara- 
tive Mythology  beyond  the  limited  range  within  which  it  is 
aided  by  History  and  Language,  has  brought  the  popular  tales 
of  Africa  and  Europe  into  close  connexion  by  adducing,  among 
others,  the  unmistakeable  common  origin  of  the  Norse  Tale 
of  the  Bear  who,  at  the  instigation  of  the  Fox,  fishes  with 
his  tail  through  a  hole  in  the  ice  till  it  is  frozen  in,  and  then 
pulls  at  it  till  it  comes  off,  and  the  story  from  Bornu  of  the 
Hyaena  who  puts  his  tail  into  the  hole,  that  the  Weasel  may 
fasten  the  meat  to  it,  but  the  Weasel  fastens  a  stick  to  it 
instead,  and  the  Hyaena  pulls  till  his  tail  breaks ;  both  stories 
accounting  in  a  similar  way,  but  with  a  proper  difference  of 

1  For  etym.  etc.  of  Batara  Guru,  see  W.  v.  Humboldt,  Kawi-Spr.,  vol.  i.  p.  100  ; 
Schirreii,  p.  116  ;  also  Crawfurd,  Introd.,  p.  cxviii.  and  s.  IT.  batara,  gum. 

-  Gomara,  Hist.  Gen.  de  las  Indias  ;  Medina  del  Campo.  1553,  part  i,  fol.  xxiii. 
Petri  Martyri  Do  Oibe  Xovo  (1516),  ed.  Hakluvt ;  Paris,  15S7,  dec.  ii.  c.  10. 
Galvano,  p.  123. 


3C6  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION   OF  ]SIYTHS. 

local  colouring,  for  the  fact  that  bears  and  hyaenas  are  stumpy- 
tailed.1 

A  similar  story  is  told  in  Reynard  the  Fox,  less  appositely, 
of  the  Wolf  instead  of  the  Bear,'3  and  in  the  Celtic  story  recently 
published  by  Mr.  Campbell,  it  is  again  the  Wolf  who  loses  his 
tail.  In  this  latter  story,  by  that  kaleidoscopic  arrangement  of 
incidents  which  is  so  striking  a  feature  of  Mythology,  the  losing 
of  the  tail  is. combined  with  the  episode  of  taking  the  reflection 
of  the  moon  for  a  cheese,  which  occurs  in  another  connexion  in 
Reynard,3  and  is  apparently  the  origin  of  our  popular  saying 
about  the  moon  being  made  of  green  cheese. 

"  He  made  an  instrument  to  know 
If  the  moon  shine  at  full  or  no  ; 
That  would,  as  soon  as  e'er  she  shone,  straight 
Whether  'twere  day  or  night  demonstrate  ; 
Tell  what  her  d'ameter  to  an  inch  is. 
And  prove  that  she's  not  made  of  green  cheese."4 

Here,  of  course,  "  green  cheese "  means,  like  rupos  \\Mpos, 
fresh,  white  cheese.  In  the  Highland  tale  the  Fox  shows  the 
Wolf  the  moon  on  the  ice,  and  tells  him  it  is  a  cheese,  and  he 
must  cover  it  with  his  tail  to  hide  it,  till  the  Fox  goes  to  see 
that  the  farmer  is  asleep.  When  the  tail  is  frozen  tight  the 
Fox  alarms  the  farmer,  and  the  Wolf  leaves  his  tail  behind 
him.5 

"  The  tailless  condition  both  of  the  bear  and  the  hyaena," 
Dr.  Dasent  remarks,  "  could  scarcely  fail  to  attract  attention  in 
a  race  of  hunters,  and  we  might  expect  that  popular  tradition 
would  attempt  to  account  for  both."  The  reasonableness  of 
this  conjecture  is  well  shown  in  the  case  of  two  other  short- 
tailed  beasts,  in  a  mythical  episode  from  Central  America, 
which  bears  no  appearance  of  being  historically  connected 
with  the  rest,  but  looks  as  though  it  had  been  devised  inde- 
pendently to  account  for  the  facts.  When  the  two  princes 
Hunahpu  and  Xbalanque  set  themselves  one  day  to  till  the 

1  Dasent,  'Popular  Tales  from  the  Norse  ;'  (2nd  ed.)  Edinburgh,  1859,  pp.  1,  107. 
1  Grimm,  'Reinhart  Fuchs,'  pp.  civ.  cxxii.  51. 

*  Grimm,  'Reinhart  Fuchs,'  p.  cxxvii.  4  '  Hudibras,'  part  ii.  canto  Hi. 

*  Campbell,   '  Popular  Tales  of  the  West  Highlands  ; '   Edinburgh,  1860,  vol.  i. 
p.  272. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS.  3G7 

ground,  the  axe  cut  down  the  trees  and  the  mattock  cleared 
away  the  underwood,  while  the  masters  amused  themselves 
with  shooting.  But  next  day,  when  they  came  back,  tlu-y 
found  the  trees  and  creepers  and  hramhles  hack  in  their 
places.  So  they  cleared  the  ground  again,  and  hid  themselves 
to  watch,  and  at  midnight  all  the  beasts  came,  small  and  great, 
saying  in  their  language,  "Trees,  arise;  creepers,  arise!"  and 
they  came  close  to  the  two  princes.  First  came  the  Lion  and 
the  Tiger,  and  the  princes  tried  to  catch  them,  but  could  not. 
Then  came  the  Stag  and  the  Rabbit,  and  them  they  caught  by 
their  tails,  but  the  tails  came  off,  and  so  the  Stag  and  the  Rab- 
bit have  still  but  "  scarce  a  stump  "  left  them  to  this  day.  But 
the  Fox  and  the  Jackal  and  the  Boar  and  the  Porcupine  and  the 
other  beasts  passed  by,  and  they  could  not  catch  one  till  the  Rat 
came  leaping  along  ;  he  was  the  last  and  they  got  in  his  way 
and  caught  him  in  a  cloth.  They  pinched  his  head  and  tried  to 
clioke  him,  and  burnt  his  tail  over  the  fire,  and  since  then  the 
rat  has  had  a  hairless  tail,  and  his  eyes  are  as  if  they  had  been 
squeezed  out  of  his  head.  But  he  begged  to  be  heard,  and  told 
them  it  was  not  their  business  to  till  the  ground,  for  the  rings 
and  gloves  and  the  india-rubber  ball,  the  instruments  of  the 
princely  game,  were  hidden  in  their  grandmother's  house,  and 
BO  forth.1 

The  curious  mythic  art  of  Tail-fishing  only  forms  a  part  of 
the  stories  how  the  Bear,  the  Wolf,  and  the  Hyaena  came  to 
lose  their  tails  in  Europe  and  Africa.  But  this  particular  idea, 
taken  by  itself,  has  a  wide  geographical  range  both  in  the 
Old  and  New  Worlds.  A  story  current  in  India,  apparently 
among  the  Tamil  population  of  the  South,  is  told  by  the  Rev. 
J.  Roberts,  who  says,  speaking  of  the  jackal,  "this  animal 
is  very  much  like  the  fox  of  England  in  his  habits  and  appear- 
ance. I  have  been  told,  that  they  often  catch  the  crab  by 
putting  their  tail  into  its  hole,  which  the  creature  imme- 
diately seizes,  in  hope  of  food :  the  jackal  then  drags  it  out  and 
devours  it."  2 

In  North  America,  the  bearer  of  the  story  is  the  racoon. 

1  r.rassenr,  Topul-Yub,'  pp.  113-25. 
8  Roberts,  'Oriental  Illustrations,'  p.  172. 


3G8  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS. 

"Lawson  relates,  that  those  which  formerly  lived  on  the  salt 
•waters  in  Carolina,  fed  on  oysters,  which  they  nimbly  snatched 
when  the  shell  opened ;  but  that  sometimes  the  paw  was 
caught,  and  held  till  the  return  of  the  tide}  in  which  the  ani- 
mal, though  it  swims  well,  was  sometimes  drowned.  His  art 
in  catching  crabs  is  still  more  extraordinary.  Standing  on  ths 
borders  of  the  waters  where  this  shell-fish  abounds,  he  keeps 
the  end  of  his  tail  floating  on  the  surface,  which  the  crab  seizes, 
and  he  then  leaps  forward  with  his  prey,  and  destroys  it  in  a 
very  artful  manner." l  In  South  America,  the  art  is  given  to 
two  other  very  cunning  creatures,  the  monkey  and  the  jaguar. 
I  have  been  informed  by  one  of  the  English  explorers  in  British 
Guiana,  that  it  is  a  current  story  there,  that  the  monkey  catches 
fish  by  letting  them  take  hold  of  the  end  of  his  tail.  Southey, 
quoting  from  a  manuscript  description  of  the  district  flooded 
by  the  River  Paraguay,  called  the  Lago  Xarayes,  says  "  when 
the  floods  are  out  the  fish  leave  the  river  to  feed  upon  certain 
fruits :  as  soon  as  they  hear  or  feel  the  fruit  strike  the  water, 
they  leap  to  catch  it  as  it  rises  to  the  surface,  and  in  their 
eagerness  spring  into  the  air.  From  this  habit  the  Ounce  has 
learnt  a  curious  stratagem  ;  he  gets  upon  a  projecting  bough, 
and  from  time  to  time  strikes  the  water  with  his  tail,  thus  imi- 
tating the  sound  which  the  fruit  makes  as  it  drops,  and  as  the 
fish  spring  towards  it,  he  catches  them  with  his  paw."!  More 
recently,  the  story  has  been  told  again  by  Mr.  Wallace  :  "  The 
jaguar,  say  the  Indians,  is  the  most  cunning  animal  in  the 
forest :  he  can  imitate  the  voice  of  almost  every  bird  and  animal 
so  exactly,  as  to  draw  them  towards  him :  he  fishes  in  the 
rivers,  lashing  the  water  with  his  tail  to  imitate  falling  fruit, 
and  when  the  fish  approach,  hooks  them  up  with  his  claws." J 
It  may  be  objected  against  the  use  of  the  tail-fishing  story 
as  mythological  evidence,  that  there  may  possibly  be  some 
foundation  for  it  in  actual  fact ;  and  it  is  indeed  hardly  more 
astonishing,  for  instance,  than  the  jaguar's  turning  a  number 
of  river-turtles  on  their  backs  to  be  eaten  at  his  leisure,  a 
story  which  Humboldt  accepts  as  true.  But  the  way  in  which 

1  D.  B.  Warden,  Account  of  U.  S. ;  Edinburgh,  1819,  vol.  i.  p.  199. 
*  Southey,  vol.  i.  p.  142.  a  Wallace,  p.  455. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS.  3G9 

the  tail-fishing  is  attributed  in  different  countries  to  one  animal 
after  another,  the  bear,  the  wolf,  the  hyaena,  the  jackal,  the 
racoon,  the  monkey,  and  the  jaguar,  authorizes  the  opinion 
that,  in  most  cases  at  least,  it  is  one  of  those  floating  ideas 
which  are  taken  up  as  part  of  the  story-teller's  stock  in  trade, 
and  used  where  it  suits  him,  but  with  no  particular  subordina- 
tion to  fact. 

Lastly,  another  Old  World  story  which  has  a  remarkable 
analogue  in  South  America  is  that  of  the  Diable  Boiteux.  This, 
however,  in  the  state  in  which  it  is  known  to  modern  Europe,  is 
a  conception  a  good  deal  modified  under  Christian  influences. 
In  the  old  mythology  of  our  race,  it  is  the  Fire-god  who  is  lame. 
The  unsteady  flickering  of  the  flames  may  perhaps  be  figured  in 
the  crooked  legs  and  hobbling  gait  of  Hephaestus,  and  Zeus 
casts  him  down  from  heaven  to  earth  like  his  crooked  light- 
nings ;  while  the  stones  which  correspond  with  the  Vulcan-myth 
on  German  ground  tell  of  the  laming  of  Wielaud,  our  Wayluud 
Smith,  the  representative  of  Hephaestus.  The  transfer  of  the 
lameness  of  the  Fire-god  to  the  Devil  seems  to  belong  to  the 
mixture  of  the  Scriptural  Satan  with  the  ideas  of  heathen  gods, 
elves,  giants,  and  demons,  which  go  to  form  that  strange  com- 
pound, the  Devil  of  popular  mediaeval  belief.1 

There  is  something  very  quaint  in  the  notion  of  a  lame  god  or 
devil,  but  it  is  quite  a  familiar  one  in  South  Africa.  The  deity 
of  the  Xamaquas  and  other  tribes  is  Tsui'kuap,  whose  principal 
attributes  seem  to  be  the  causing  of  pain  and  death.  This  being 
received  a  wound  in  his  knee  in  a  great  fight,  and  "  Wouuded- 
knee"  appears  to  be  the  meaning  of  his  name.2  Moffat's  account, 
which  is  indeed  not  very  clear,  fits  with  a  late  remark  made  by 
Livingstone  among  another  people  of  South  Africa,  the  Bakwains. 
He  observes  that  near  the  village  of  Sechele  there  is  a  cave  called 
Lepelole,  which  no  one  dared  to  enter,  for  it  was  the  common 
belief  that  it  was  the  habitation  of  the  Deity,  and  that  no  one 
who  went  in  ever  came  out  again.  "It  is  curious,"  he  says, 
"  that  in  all  their  pretended  dreams  or  visions  of  their  god  he 

1  Welcker,    '  Griechische  Gotterlehre ; '    Gottingen,  1857,  etc.,  vol.  i.  pp.  661-5. 
Grimm,  D.  M.,  pp.  221,  3rl,  937-8,  944,  9(53.     See  Schirren,  p.  101. 

2  Mollat,  pp.  257-9. 

B  B 


370  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISTRIBUTION   OF  MYTHS. 

has  always  a  crooked  leg,  like  the  Egyptian  Thau."1  Even  in 
Australia  something  similar  is  to  be  found.  The  Biain  is  held 
to  be  like  a  black,  but  deformed  in  his  lower  extremities ;  the 
natives  say  they  got  many  of  the  songs  sung  at  their  dances  from 
him,  but  he  also  causes  diseases,  especially  one  which  marks  the 
face  like  small-pox.2 

The  Diable  Boiteux  of  South  America  is  thus  described  by 
Poppig,  in  his  account  of  the  life  of  the  forest  Indians  of 
Mainas.  "  A  ghostly  being,  the  Uchuclla-chaqui  or  Lame-foot, 
alone  troubles  the  source  of  his  best  pleasure  and  his  livelihood. 
"Where  the  forest  is  darkest,  where  only  the  light-avoiding 
amphibia  and.  the  nocturnal  birds  dwell,  lives  this  dangerous 
creature,  and  endeavours,  by  putting  on  some  friendly  shape,  to 
lure  the  Indian  to  his  destruction.  As  the  sociable  hunters  do, 
it  gives  the  well  understood  signs,  and,  never  reached  itself, 
entices  the  deluded  victim  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  solitude, 
disappearing  with  a  shout  of  mocking  laughter  when  the  path 
home  is  lost,  and  the  terrors  of  the  wilderness  are  increasing 
with  the  growing  shadows  of  night.  Sometimes  it  separaU'S 
companions  who  have  gone  hunting  together,  by  appearing  first 
in  one  place,  then  in  another  in  an  altered  form ;  but  it  never 
can  deceive  the  wary  hunter  who  in  distrust  examines  the  foot- 
steps of  his  enemy.  Hardly  has  he  caught  sight  of  the  quite 
unequal  size  of  the  impressions  of  the  feet,  when  he  hastens 
back,  and  for  long  after  no  one  dares  to  make  an  expedition  into 
the  wilderness,  for  the  visits  of  the  fiend  are  only  for  a  time."  :' 
In  South  America,  as  in  Africa,  this  is  not  a  mere  local  tale,  but 
a  widely  spread  belief. 

In  conclusion,  the  analogies  between  the  Mythology  of  America 
and  of  the  rest  of  the  world  which  have  been  here  enumerated, 
when  taken  together  with  the  many  more  which  come  into  view 
in  studying  a  wider  range  of  native  American  traditions,  and 
after  full  allowance  has  been  made  for  independent  coincidences, 
seern  to  me  to  warrant  some  expectation  that  the  American 

1  Livingstone,  p.  124.     He  means,  I  presume,  Pthah,  or  rather  Pthah-Sokari  Osiris. 

2  Eyre,  vol.  ii.  p.  362. 

3  Toppig,    'lleise  in  Chile,' etc. ;   Leipzig,  1835,  vol.  ii.  p.  353.     Klernin,  G.  G., 
vol.  i.  p.  276. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  MYTHS.  371 

Mythology  may  have  to  be  treated  as  embodying  materials 
common  to  other  districts  of  the  world,  mixed  no  doubt  with 
purely  native  matter.  Such  a  view  would  bring  the  early  history 
of  America  into  definite  connexion  with  that  of  other  regions, 
over  a  larger  geographical  range  than  that  included  in  Humboldt's 
argument,  and  would  bear  with  some  force,  though  of  course  but 
indirectly,  on  the  problem  of  the  diffusion  of  mankind. 


B  2 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

CONCLUDING    EEMAEKS. 

IT  has  been  intimated  that  the  present  series  of  Essays  affords 
no  sufficient  foundation  for  a  definite  theory  of  the  Rise  and 
Progress  of  Human  Civilization  in  early  times.  Nor,  indeed, 
will  any  such  foundation  be  ready  for  building  upon,  until  a  great 
deal  of  preparatory  work  has  been  done.  Still,  the  evidence 
which  has  here  been  brought  together  seems  to  tell  distinctly 
for  or  against  some  widely  circulated  Ethnological  theories,  and 
also  to  justify  a  certain  amount  of  independent  generalization, 
and  the  results  of  the  foregoing  chapters  in  this  way  may  now  be 
briefly  summed  up,  with  a  few  additional  remarks. 

In  the  first  place,  the  facts  collected  seem  to  favour  the  view 
that  the  wide  differences  in  the  civilization  and  mental  state  of 
the  various  races  of  mankind  are  rather  differences  of  develop- 
ment than  of  origin,  rather  of  degree  than  of  kind.  Thus  the 
Gesture-Language  is  the  same  in  principle,  and  similar  in  its 
details,  all  over  the  world.  The  likeness  in  the  formation  both 
of  pure  myths  and  of  those  crude  theories  which  have  been 
described  as  "myths  of  observation,"  among  races  so  dissimilar 
in  the  colour  of  their  skins  and  the  shape  of  their  skulls,  tells  in 
the  same  direction.  And  wherever  the  occurrence  of  any  art 
or  knowledge  in  two  places  can  be  confidently  ascribed  to  inde- 
pendent invention,  as,  for  instance,  when  we  find  the  dwellers 
in  the  ancient  lake -habitations  of  Switzerland,  and  the  Modern 
New  Zealanders,  adopting  a  like  construction  in  their  curious 
fabrics  of  tied  bundles  of  fibre,  the  similar  step  thus  made  in 
different  times  and  places  tends  to  prove  the  similarity  of  tlto 
minds  that  made  it.  Moreover,  to  take  a  somewhat  weaker  line 
of  argument,  the  uniformity  with  which  like  stages  in  the  develop- 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS.  373 

ment  of  art  and  science  are  found  among  the  most  unlike  races, 
may  be  adduced  as  evidence  on  the  same  side,  in  spite  of  the 
constant  difficulty  in  deciding  whether  any  particular  development 
is  due  to  independent  invention,  or  to  transmission  from  some 
other  people  to  those  among  whom  it  is  found.  For  if  the 
similar  thing  has  been  produced  in  two  places  by  independent 
invention,  then,  as  has  just  been  said,  it  is  direct  evidence  of 
similarity  of  mind.  And  on  the  other  hand,  if  it  was  carried 
from  the  one  place  to  the  other,  or  from  a  third  to  both,  by  mere 
transmission  from  people  to  people,  then  the  smallness  of  the 
change  it  has  suffered  in  transplanting  is  still  evidence  of  the 
like  nature  of  the  soil  wherever  it  is  found. 

Considered  both  from  this  and  other  points  of  view,  this  uni- 
form development  of  the  lower  civilization  is  a  matter  of  great 
interest.  The  state  of  things  which  is  found  is  not  indeed  that 
one  race  does  or  knows  exactly  what  another  race  does  or  knows, 
but  that  similar  stages  of  development  recur  in  different  times 
and  places.  There  is  reason  to  suppose  that  our  ancestors  in- 
remote  times  made  fire  with  a  machine  much  like  that  of  the 
modern  Esquimaux,  and  at  a  far  later  date  they  used  the  bow 
and  arrow,  as  so  many  savage  tribes  do  still.  The  foregoing 
chapters  treating  of  the  history  of  some  early  arts,  of  the  practice 
of  sorcery,  of  curious  customs  and  superstitions,  are  indeed  full 
of  instances  of  the  recurrence  of  like  phenomena  in  the  remotest 
regions  of  the  world.  We  might  reasonably  expect  that  men  of 
like  minds,  when  placed  under  widely  different  circumstances  of 
country,  climate,  vegetable  and  animal  life,  and  so  forth,  should 
develop  very  various  phenomena  of  civilization,  and  we  even 
know  by  evidence  that  they  actually  do  so ;  but  nevertheless  it 
strikingly  illustrates  the  extent  of  mental  uniformity  among 
mankind  to  notice  that  it  is  really  difficult  to  find,  among  a  list 
of  twenty  items  of  art  or  knowledge,  custom  or  superstition, 
taken  at  random  from  a  description  of  any  uncivilized  race,  a 
single  one  to  which  something  closely  analogous  may  not  be 
found  elsewhere  among  some  other  race,  unlike  the  first  in 
physical  characters,  and  living  thousands  of  miles  off.  It  is 
taking  a  somewhat  extreme  case  to  put  the  Australians  to  such 
a  test,  for  they  are  perhaps  the  most  peculiar  of  the  lower  vurio- 


374«  CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 

ties  of  Man,  yet  among  the  arts,  beliefs,  and  customs,  found 
among  their  tribes,  there  are  comparatively  few  that  cannot  be 
matched  elsewhere.  They  raise  scars  on  their  bodies  like  Afri- 
can tribes  ;  they  circumcise  like  the  Jews  and  Arabs ;  they  bar 
marriage  in  the  female  line  like  the  Iroquois  ;  they  drop  out  of 
their  language  the  names  of  plants  and  animals  which  have  been 
used  as  the  personal  names  of  dead  men,  and  make  new  words 
to  serve  instead,  like  the  Abipones  of  South  America ;  tlu  y 
bewitch  their  enemies  with  locks  of  hair,  and  pretend  to  cure  tho 
sick  by  sucking  out  stones  through  their  skin,  as  is  done  in  so 
many  other  regions.  It  is  true  that  among  their  weapons  they 
have  one  of  very  marked,  perhaps  even  specific  peculiarity, 
boomerang,  but  the  rest  of  their  armoury,  the  spear,  the  spear- 
thrower,  the  club,  the  thro  wing- cudgel,  are  but  varieties  of 
instruments  common  elsewhere,  and  the  same  is  true  of  their 
fire-drill,  their  stone  hatchet,  their  nets  and  baskets,  their  bark 
canoes  and  rafts.  And  while  among  the  Australians  there  are 
only  a  very  few  exceptions  to  modify  the  general  rule  that  what- 
ever is  found  in  one  place  in  the  world  may  be  matched  more  or 
less  closely  elsewhere,  piecemeal  or  as  a  whole,  the  proportion  of 
such  exceptions  is  smaller,  and  consequently  the  uniformity  of  de- 
velopment more  strikingly  marked,  among  most  of  the  other  races 
of  the  world  who  have  not  risen  above  the  lower  levels  of  culture. 
In  the  next  place,  the  collections  of  facts  relating  to  various 
useful  arts  seem  to  justify  the  opinion  that,  in  such  practical 
matters  at  least,  the  history  of  mankind  has  been  on  the  whole 
a  history  of  progress.  Over  almost  the  whole  world  are  found 
traces  of  the  former  use  of  stone  implements,  now  supersc 
by  metal ;  rude  and  laborious  means  of  making  fire  have  been 
supplanted  by  easier  and  better  processes  ;  over  large  regions 
of  the  earth  the  art  of  boiling  in  earthen  or  metal  pots  over  tho 
fire  has  succeeded  the  ruder  art  of  stone-boiling ;  in  three  dis- 
tant countries  the  art  of  writing  sounds  is  found  developing 
itself  out  of  mere  picture-writing,  and  this  phonetic  writing  has 
superseded  in  several  districts  the  use  of  quipus,  or  knotted 
cords,  as  a  means  of  record  and  communication.  In  the  chap- 
ter particularly  devoted  to  evidence  of  progress,  a  number  of 
facts  are  stated  which  seem  to  be  records  of  a  forward  develop- 


CONCLUDING   REMARKS.  STo 

ment  in  other  arts,  in  times  and  places  beyond  the  range  of 
history.  On  the  other  hand,  though  arts  which  flourish  in 
times  of  great  refinement  or  luxury,  and  complex  processes 
which  require  a  combination  of  skill  or  labour  hard  to  get 
together,  and  liable  to  be  easily  disarranged,  may  often  de- 
generate, yet  the  more  homely  and  useful  the  art,  and  the  less 
difficult  the  conditions  for  its  exercise,  the  less  likely  it  is  to 
disappear  from  the  world,  unless  when  superseded  by  some 
better  device.  Eaces  may  and  do  leave  off  building  temples 
and  monuments  of  sculptured  stone,  and  fall  off  in  the  execu- 
tion of  masterpieces  of  metal-work  and  porcelain,  but  there  is 
no  evidence  of  any  tribe  giving  up  the  use  of  the  spindle  to 
twist  their  thread  by  hand,  or  having  been  in  the  habit  of  work- 
ing the  fire-drill  with  a  thong,  and  going  back  to  the  clumsier 
practice  of  working  it  without,  and  it  is  even  hard  to  fancy  such 
a  thing  happening.  Since  the  Hottentots  have  learnt,  within 
the  last  two  centuries  or  so,  to  smelt  the  iron  ore  of  their 
country,  it  is  hard  to  imagine  that  anything  short  of  extirpating 
them  or  driving  them  into  a  country  destitute  of  iron,  could 
make  them  go  back  to  the  Stone  Age  in  which  their  ancestors 
lived.  Some  facts  are  quoted  which  bear  on  the  possible  degene- 
ration of  savage  tribes  when  driven  out  into  the  desert,  or  other- 
wise reduced  to  destitution,  or  losing  their  old  arts  in  the 
presence  of  a  higher  civilization,  but  there  seems  ground  for 
thinking  that  such  degeneration  has  been  rather  of  a  local  than 
of  a  general  character,  and  has  rather  affected  the  fortunes  of 
particular  tribes  than  the  development  of  the  world  at  large.  I 
do  not  think  I  have  ever  met  with  a  single  fact  which  seems  to 
me  to  justify  the  theory,  of  which  Dr.  von  Martius  is  perhaps  the 
1- -tiding  advocate,  that  the  ordinary  condition  of  the  savage  is  the 
result  of  degeneration  from  a  far  higher  state.1  The  chapter  on 

1  See  above,  p.  136.     It  appears,  however,  that  the  late  Dr.  Martins  is  no  longer 
to  lie  reckoned  among  the  supporters  of  the  degeneration-theory,  as  in  later  years  he 
saw  cause  to  reverse  his  early  views.     Since  the  date  of  the  first  edition  of  I 
present  work,  he  has  published  his  opinion  as  to  the  Amazons  tribes,  that  there  i 
no  ground  for  considering  their  barbarous  condition  a  secondary  one,  nor  that  it 
preceded  by  a  higher  state  of  morals,  or  a  past  civilization.     See  Martius,  '  1 
zur  Ethnographic  Amcrika's,'  Leipzig,  1867,  vol.  i.  p.  375  ;   also  Fescbcl,   '  Ull 
kunde,'  Leipzig,  1874,  p.  137.     [Note  to  3rd  Edition.] 


S7G  CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 

"Images  and  Names,"  which  explains  the  arts  of  Magic  as  the 
effects  of  an  early  mental  condition  petrified  into  a  series  of 
mystic  observances  carried  up  into  the  midst  of  a  higher  culture, 
is  indeed  in  the  strongest  opposition  to  the  view  strongly  advo- 
cated by  degenerationists,  that  these  superstitious  practices  are 
mutilated  remnants  of  a  high  system  of  belief  which  prevailed  in 
former  times.  So  far  as  may  be  judged  from  the  scanty  and  de- 
fective evidence  which  has  as  yet  been  brought  forward,  I  ven- 
ture to  think  the  most  reasonable  opinion  to  be  that  the  course 
of  development  of  the  lower  civilization  has  been  on  the  whole 
in  a  forward  direction,  though  interfered  with  occasionally  and 
locally  by  the  results  of  degrading  and  destroying  influences. 

Granting  the  existence  of  this  onward  movement  in  the  lower 
levels  of  art  and  science,  the  question  then  arises,  how  any  par- 
ticular piece  of  skill  or  knowledge  has  come  into  any  particular 
place  where  it  is  found.  Three  ways  are  open,  independent  in- 
vention, inheritance  from  ancestors  in  a  distant  region,  trans- 
mission from  one  race  to  another ;  but  between  these  three  ways 
the  choice  is  commonly  a  difficult  one.  Sometimes,  indeed,  the 
first  is  evidently  to  be  preferred.  Thus,  though  the  floating 
gardens  of  Mexico  and  Cashmere  are  very  similar  devices,  it 
seems  more  likely  that  the  Mexican  chinampa  was  invented  on 
the  spot  than  that  the  idea  of  it  was  imported  from  a  distant 
region.  Though  the  wattled  cloth  of  the  Swiss  lake-dwellings  is 
so  similar  in  principle  to  that  of  New  Zealand,  it  is  much  easier 
to  suppose  it  the  result  of  separate  invention  than  of  historical 
connexion.  Though  both  the  Egyptians  and  Chinese  came 
upon  the  expedient  of  making  the  picture  of  an  object  stand  for 
the  sound  which  was  the  name  of  that  object,  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  their  having  done  so  independently. 

But  the  more  difficult  it  is  to  account  for  observed  facts  in 
this  way,  and  the  more  necessary  it  becomes  to  have  recourse  to 
theories  of  inheritance  or  transmission  to  explain  them,  the 
greater  is  their  value  in  the  eyes  of  the  Ethnologist.  "Wherever 
he  can  judge  that  the  existence  of  similar  phenomena  in  the 
culture  of  distant  peoples  cannot  be  fairly  accounted  for,  except 
by  supposing  that  there  has  been  a  connexion  by  blood  or  by  in- 
tercourse between  them,  then  he  has  before  him  eviiL  i:cc  bear- 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS.  377 

ing  upon  the  history  of  civilization  and  on  the  history  of  man- 
kind, evidence  which  shows  that  such  movements  as  have 
introduced  guns,  axes,  hooks,  into  America  in  historic  times, 
have  also  taken  place  in  uuhistoric  times  among  tribes  whose 
ancestors  have  left  them  no  chronicles  of  past  ages.  Thus  the 
appearing  of  the  Malay  smelting-furnace  in  Madagascar,  and  of 
the  outrigger  canoe  in  East  Australia  and  the  Andaman  Islands, 
may  he  appealed  to  as  evidence  of  historical  connexion.  It  is 
possible  that  the  Ethnographer  may  some  day  feel  himself  jus- 
tified in  giving  to  this  kind  of  argument  a  far  wider  range.  He 
may  not  perhaps  venture  on  extreme  arguments,  such,  for  in- 
stance, as  to  claim  for  the  bow  and  arrow  a  common  origin 
wherever  it  is  found,  that  is,  over  the  whole  world  with  perhaps 
no  exception  but  part  of  Polynesia,  and  part  or  the  whole  of 
Australia.  Yet,  noticing  that  the  distribution  of  the  potter's 
art  in  North  America  is  not  sporadic,  as  if  a  tribe  here  and  a 
tribe  there  had  wanted  it  and  invented  it,  but  that  it  rises  north- 
wards in  a  compact  field  from  Mexico  among  the  tribes  East  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  he  may  more  forcibly  argue  that  it  spread 
from  a  single  source,  and  is  at  once  a  result  and  a  proof  of  the 
transmission  of  civilization.  Indeed,  it  seems  as  though  the 
recurrence  of  similar  groups  in  the  inventories  of  instruments 
and  works  of  the  lower  races,  so  remarkable  both  in  the  presence 
of  like  things  and  the  comparative  absence  of  unlike  ones,  might 
come  to  supply,  in  a  more  advanced  state  of  Ethnography,  the 
materials  for  an  indefinite  series  of  arguments  bearing  on  the 
early  history  of  man. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied,  however,  that  there  is  usually  a  large 
element  of  uncertainty  in  inferences  of  this  kind  taken  alone, 
and  it  is  only  in  special  cases  that  summary  generalizations 
from  such  evidence  can  as  yet  be  admitted.  Indeed,  its  proper 
place  is  rather  as  accompanying  the  argument  from  language, 
mythology,  and  customs,  than  as  standing  by  itself.  Thus  the 
appearance,  just  referred  to,  of  the  Malay  blast-furnace  in 
Madagascar  has  to  be  viewed  in  connexion  with  the  affinity  in 
language  between  Madagascar  and  the  islands  of  the  Eastern 
Archipelago.  Putting  the  two  things  together,  we  may  assume 
that  the  connexion  with  Madagascar  dates  from  a  time  since 


378  CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 

the  introduction  of  iron-smelting  in  a  part  of  the  great  Malayo- 
Polynesian  district,  and  belongs  to  that  particular  group  of 
islands  near  the  Eastern  coast  of  Asia  where  this  immense  step 
in  material  civilization  was  made.  Again,  the  philological  re- 
searches of  Buschmann,  which  have  brought  into  view  traces  of 
the  Aztec  language  up  into  the  heart  of  North  America,  fifteen 
hundred  miles  and  more  north  of  the  City  of  Mexico,  join  with 
several  other  lines  of  evidence  in  bringing  far  distant  parts  of 
the  population  of  the  continent  into  historical  connexion,  and  in 
showing,  at  least,  that  such  communication  between  its  different 
peoples  as  may  have  spread  the  art  of  pottery  from  a  single 
locality  is  not  matter  of  mere  speculation.  It  is  in  this  way 
that  it  will  probably  be  found  most  expedient  to  use  fragmentary 
arguments  from  the  distribution  of  the  arts  and  sciences  of 
savage  tribes,  in  Ethnological  districts  where  a  way  has  been 
already  opened  by  more  certain  methods. 

In  its  bearing  on  the  History  of  Mankind,  the  tendency  of 
modern  research  in  the  region  of  Comparative  Mythology  is  not 
to  be  mistaken.  The  number  of  myths  recorded  as  found  in 
different  countries,  where  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  they 
should  have  grown  independently,  goes  on  steadily  increasing 
from  year  to  year,  each  one  famishing  a  new  clue  by  which 
common  descent  or  intercourse  is  to  be  traced.  Such  evidence, 
as  fast  as  it  is  brought  before  the  public,  is  received  with  the 
most  lively  interest ;  and  not  only  is  its  value  fully  admitted, 
but  there  may  even  be  observed  a  tendency  to  use  it  with  too 
much  confidence  in  proof  of  common  descent,  without  enough 
consideration  of  what  we  know  of  the  way  in  which  Mythology 
really  travels  from  race  to  race.  The  cause  of  the  occurrence 
of  a  myth,  or  of  a  whole  family  of  myths,  may  be,  and  no  doubt 
often  is,  mere  intercourse,  which  has  as  little  to  do  with  com- 
mon descent  as  the  connexion  which  has  planted  the  stories 
of  the  Arabian  Nights  among  the  Malays  of  Borneo,  and  the 
legends  of  Buddha  among  the  Chinese.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  argument  from  similar  Customs  has  received,  as  a  whole, 
comparatively  little  attention,  but  it  is  not  without  importance. 
Two  or  three,  at  least,  of  the  customs  remarked  upon  in  the 
present  volume,  in  the  group  including  the  cure  by  sucking, 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS.  379 

the  couvade,  and  others,  such  as  the  wide-spread  superstitions 
connected  with  sneezing,  on  which  Mr.  Haliburton  gave  a  lec- 
ture, in  1863,  at  Halifax,  Nova  Scotia,1  may  be  adduced  as 
facts  for  the  occurrence  of  which  in  so  many  distant  times  and 
places  it  is  hard  to  account  on  any  other  hypothesis  than  that 
of  deep-lying  connexions  by  blood  or  intercourse,  among  races 
which  history,  and  even  philology,  only  know  as  isolated  sections 
of  the  population  of  the  world.  Whether  such  customs  had  one 
or  several  original  sources,  their  present  diffusion  seems  in  great 
measure  due  to  propagation  from  district  to  district. 

On  the  whole,  it  does  not  seem  to  be  an  unreasonable,  or 
even  an  over- sanguine  view,  that  the  mass  of  analogies  in  Art 
and  Knowledge,  Mythology  and  Custom,  confused  and  indis- 
tinct as  they  at  present  are,  may  already  be  taken  to  indicate 
that  the  civilizations  of  many  races,  whose  history  even  the 
evidence  of  Language  has  not  succeeded  in  bringing  into  con- 
nexion, have  really  grown  up  under  one  another's  influences,  or 
derived  common  material  from  a  common  source.  But  that 
such  lines  of  argument  should  ever  be  found  to  converge  in  the 
last  instance  towards  a  single  point,  so  as  to  enable  the  student 
to  infer  from  reasoning  on  a  basis  of  observed  facts  that  the 
civilization  of  the  whole  world  has  its  origin  in  one  parent 
stock,  is  a  state  of  things  of  which  not  even  the  most  dim  and 
distant  view  is  to  be  obtained. 

On  another  subject,  on  which  it  would  not  be  prudent  to 
offer  a  definite  opinion,  a  few  words  may  nevertheless  be  said. 
Every  attempt  to  trace  back  the  early  history  of  civilization 
tends,  however  remotely,  towards  an  ultimate  limit — the  pri- 
mary condition  of  the  human  race,  as  regards  their  knowledge 
of  the  laws  of  nature  and  their  power  of  modifying  the  outer 
world  for  their  own  ends.  Such  lines  of  investigation  as  go 
back  from  the  Bronze  or  Iron  Ages  to  the  time  of  the  use  of 
implements  of  stone,  from  the  higher  to  the  lower  methods  of 
five-making,  from  the  boat  to  the  raft,  from  the  use  of  the 
spindle  to  the  art  of  hand-twisting,  and  so  on,  seem  to  enable 
the  student  to  see  back  through  the  history  of  human  culture  to 
a  state  of  art  and  science  somewhat  resembling  that  of  the 

1  R.  G.  HaliUirton,  'Xew  Materials  for  the  History  of  Mai, ,'  Halifax.  N.S.  1863. 


380  CONCLUDING  REMAKES. 

savage  tribes  of  modern  times.  It  is  useful  to  work  back  to 
this  point,  at  least  as  a  temporary  resting-place  in  the  argument, 
seeing  that  a  state  of  things  really  known  to  exist  is  generally 
more  convenient  to  reason  upon  than  a  purely  theoretical  one. 
But  if  we  may  judge  that  the  present  condition  of  savage  tribes 
is  the  complex  result  of  not  only  a  long  but  an  eventful  history, 
in  which  development  of  culture  may  have  been  more  or  less 
interfered  with  by  degradation  caused  by  war,  disease,  oppres- 
sion, and  other  mishaps,  it  does  not  seem  likely  that  any  tribe 
known  to  modern  observers  should  be  anything  like  a  fair  re- 
presentative of  primary  conditions.  Still,  positive  evidence  of 
anything  lower  than  the  known  state  of  savages  is  scarce  in  the 
extreme.  That  the  men  whose  tools  and  weapons  are  found  in 
the  Drift  Beds,  in  the  Bone  Caves,  and  in  the  Shell-Heaps  of 
Denmark,  were  not  in  the  habit  of  grinding  the  edges  of  any  of 
their  stons  implements,  may  be  instanced  as  evidence  of  a  sin- 
gularly low  condition  of  one  of  the  useful  arts.  The  general 
character  of  this  lowest  division  of  the  Stone  Age,  as  exemplified 
among  tribes  of  remote  pne-historic  times,  seems  to  place  their 
state  of  civilization  below  that  recorded  among  tribes  known  to 
travellers  or  historians. 

To  turn  to  a  very  different  department  of  culture,  some  of  the 
facts  belonging  to  the  history  of  custom  and  superstition  may 
for  the  last  time  be  referred  to,  as  perhaps  having  their  common 
root  in  a  mental  condition  underlying  anything  to  be  met  with 
now.  We  have  seen  prevalent  among  savages  and  barbarians  a 
state  of  mind  which  helps  us  to  account  for  the  whole  business 
of  Magic,  including  the  arts  of  omen-taking  by  astrology  and 
other  kinds  of  divination,  and  of  bewitching  by  means  of  images 
and  names  of  persons,  with  its  counter- system  of  prevention  and 
cure  by  sympathy,  the  last  including  the  quaintly  instructive 
custom  of  the  couvade.  But  it  looks  as  though  even  savages 
have  but  the  remains  of  this  magical  state  of  mind  inherited 
from  ancestors  of  yet  lower  culture,  and  that  they  have  begun 
to  outgrow  it,  as  the  civilized  world  has  more  fully  done.  The 
early  fusion  of  objective  and  subjective  relations  in  the  mind,  of 
the  effects  of  which  in  superstitious  practices  handed  down  from 
age  to  age  so  much  has  been  said  in  this  book,  may  perhaps  not 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS.  381 

be  fully  or  exactly  represented  in  the  mental  state  of  any  living 
tribe  of  men. 

There  have  been  indeed  few  more  important  movements  in 
the  course  of  the  history  of  mankind,  than  this  change  of 
opinion  as  to  the  nature  and  relations  of  what  is  in  the  mind 
and  what  is  out  of  it.  To  say  nothing  of  its  vast  effects  upon 
Ethics  and  Religion,  the  whole  course  of  Science,  and  of  Art, 
of  which  Science  is  a  principal  element,  has  been  deeply  in- 
fluenced by  this  mental  change.  Man's  views  of  the  difference 
between  imagination  and  reality,  of  the  nature  of  cause  and 
eifect,  of  the  connexion  between  himself  and  the  external  world, 
and  of  the  parts  of  the  external  world  among  themselves,  have 
been  entirely  altered  by  it.  To  the  times  before  this  movement 
had  gone  too  far,  belong  the  developments  of  Mythology,  so 
puzzling  to  later  ages  which  had  risen  to  a  higher  mental 
state,  and  had  then  thrown  down  the  ladder  they  had  climbed 
by.  The  modern  deciphering  of  ancient  myths  has  been  per- 
haps more  valuable  than  any  direct  examination  of  savage  races, 
in  giving  us  the  means  of  realizing  that  early  state  of  mind  in 
which  there  is  scarcely  any  distinct  barrier  between  fact  and 
fancy, — to  which  whatever  is  similar  is  the  same.  If  the  clouds 
are  driven  across  the  sky  like  cows  from  their  pasture,  they  are 
not  merely  compared  to  cows,  but  are  thought  and  talked  of  as 
though  they  really  were  cows  ;  if  the  sun  travels  along  its  course 
like  a  glittering  chariot,  forthwith  the  wheels  and  the  driver  and 
the  horses  are  there;  while  by  treating  a  name  as  though  it 
necessarily  represented  a  person,  it  becomes  possible  to  evolve  out 
of  the  contemplation  of  nature  those  wonderful  stories  in  which 
even  the  earth,  the  sea,  and  the  sky,  combine  with  their  natural 
attributes  a  kind  of  half-human  personality.  The  opinion  that 
dreams  and  phantasms  have  an  objective  existence  out  of  the 
mind  that  perceives  them,  and  that  when  two  ideas  are  asso- 
ciated in  a  man's  mind  the  objects  to  which  those  ideas  belong 
must  have  a  corresponding  physical  connexion,  are  views  over 
which  the  long  course  of  observation  and  study  of  nature  has 
brought  a  vast  change.  These  things  belong  to  that  early  con- 
dition of  the  human  mind,  from  which,  to  say  nothing  of  tli  j 
special  views  of  metaphysicians  and  leaders  in  science,  tho 


382  CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 

ordinary  ideas  of  Man  and  Nature  held  by  educated  men  differ 
so  widely.  However  far  these  ideas  may  in  their  turn  be  left 
behind,  the  growth  which  can  be  traced  within  the  range  of  our 
own  observation  and  inference,  is  one  of  no  scant  measure.  It 
may  bear  comparison  with  one  of  the  great  changes  in  the 
mental  life  of  the  individual  man,  perhaps  rather  with  the 
expansion  and  fixing  of  the  mind  which  accompanies  the 
passage  from  infancy  into  youth,  than  with  the  later  steps  from 
yoath  into  manhood,  or  from  manhood  into  old  age. 


INDEX. 


ABIPONES. 

Abipones,  140,  146,  294,  etc. 

Adobe,  97. 

./Eolian  flutes,  177. 

Africa,    Beast-Fables    of,    10-2,    365  ; 

Stone  Age  in,  220-3. 
Alnajah  of  Ethiopia,  216. 
Alphabets    and     Syllubaria,     100-3  : 

Finger-alphabet,  17. 
America,  connexion  of  its  civilization 

with  that  of  the  Old  World,  206, 

276,  339-71. 

American  chroniclers,  252. 
Andaman  Islanders,  160. 
Archimedes,  his  burning  mirrors,  249. 
Architecture,  evidence  of  progress  in, 

166. 

Ark,  331. 

Arrow-heads,  stone,  209,  211,  224. 
Articulation  of  deaf  mutes,  71-5. 
Arts,  transmission  of,  166,  etc.,  376. 
Aryan  race,  their  use  of  metal,  213  ; 

their  lire  apparatus,  242,  255. 
Astrology,  132. 
Aubin,  M.,  on   phonetic  characters  of 

Mexicans.  94-6. 
Australians,     141,     145,    175-7,    201, 

265,  282,  289,  373,  etc. 
Axes,  stone,  200. 

Bacliofen,  J.  J.,  on  couvade,  298. 

Bakalahari,  185. 

Baking  in  hollow  trees,  ant-hills,  pits, 
261. 

Balsam  of  Judea,  218. 

Bamboo,  lire  produced  from,  238. 

Barbecue,  262. 

Basques,  301. 

Beaet-Fablea  in  Europe  and  Africa, 
10-2,  365  ;  Lion  and  Mouse,  350. 

Bee-hunting,  Australian  and  American 
method  of,  177. 

Bellows  for  iron-smelting,  167. 

Bewitching,  by  images,  119-22,  124  ; 
by  earth-cutting,  119  ;  by  names, 
124-7  ;  by  locks  of  hair,  parings  of 
nails,  leavings  oi  food,  etc.,  127- 
30  ;  by  symbolic  charms,  130,  133  ; 


CHURN. 

by  '  wishing,'  134  ;  by  the  evil  eye, 

134. 

Bible,  tales  derived  from,  337-39. 
Bird-trap,  rudimentary,  170. 
Blast-pump  for  iron  smelting,  in  E;ist 

Archipelago  and  Madagascar,  107-9, 

377. 
Boats,  remains  of,  on  mountains,  etc., 

329-32. 

Boats  and  rafts,  162. 
Boiling,    263-74 ;     with    hot    stones, 

263-7  ;  vessels  for,  269-72. 
Bolas,  177. 

Bone-caves,   197,    321 ;    stone   imple- 
ments of,  197. 
Bones  burnt  for  fuel,  1 83. 
Boomerang,  175,  187,  374. 
Bread-fruit  paste,  179. 
Bridge  of  Dead,  358-63. 
Bronze  Age  in  America,  206 ;  iu  Asia, 

207. 

Bucaneers,  262. 
Bncaning,  262. 
Burial  in  canoes,  etc.,  362. 
Burning-lens,  248. 
Burning-mirror,  249-53. 
Bushmen,  77,  185. 

Calculation  by  stones,  163. 

Calendars  of  N.   A.    Indians,  90;    of 

Mexicans,  91,  339. 
Caliban,  247. 
Celts,  stone,  199-202. 
Central  America,  ruined  cities  of,  182, 

206. 

Charms,  130,  etc. 
Cherokees,  their  syllabarium,  102. 
Chinampas,  171. 

China,  aboriginal  tribes  of,  208,  300. 
Chinese,  their  clan  names,  280  ;  their 

phonetic  writing,  9S-100. 
Chocolate,  178. 
Christy,  Mr.  H.,  13  ;   his  exploration 

of  bone-caves  of  1'erigord,  197  ;  lii»l- 

ing     stone-implement*     in     .North 

Africa,  224. 
Churn  worked  witli  cord,  242. 


384 


IXDEX. 


CIRCUMCISION. 

Circumcision  :  —  with  stone  knives 
among  Jews,  214-19  ;  Rabbinical 
law  as  to  instrument,  216  ;  among 
Alnajah  in  Ethiopia,  216  ;  in  Fiji 
islands,  216;  in  Australia,  219. 

Cistercians,  their  gesture-language, 
40-2. 

Civilization,  progress  of,  2,  117,  136, 
148,  150,  etc.,  198,  295,  372,  etc., 
decline  of,  181-90,  375. 

Clan-names  : — in  China,  280  ;  Austra- 
lia, 282  ;  persons  of  same,  may  not 
marry,  280-84. 

Climbing  by  hoops,  etc.,  170. 

Cloth  of  bundles  ot  fibre,  188-91. 

Cock  and  Bull  stories,  10. 

Colour  of  feathers  changed  in  live 
birds,  177. 

Cooking,  261-70  ;  en  papillate,  173  ; 
roasting  and  broiling,  261 ;  baking, 
261  ;  underground  ovens,  261  ;  bu- 
caning  or  barbecuing,  262  ;  boiling, 
'263-70  ;  stone-boiling,  263-7. 

Copper,  native,  used  by  stone-age  races 
in  North  America,  205. 

Cord,  hand-twisting  of,  189. 

Corsicans,  303. 

Couvade,  291,  305,  380 ;  in  South 
America  and  "West  Indies,  292,  etc.  ; 
North  America,  Africa,  and  Eastern 
Archipelago,  300;  Asia,  300;  Europe, 
301  ;  its  ethnological  value,  302. 

Customs,  275, 305,  378 ;  tying  clothes  of 
couple  in  wedding,  46  ;  kissing,  rub- 
bing noses,  etc.,  51  ;  fire  not  touched 
with  sharp  instrument,  277  ;  suck- 
ing-cure, etc.,  277-9,  302  ;  restric- 
tions from  marriage  of  kindred,  279- 
88  ;  Spartan  marriage,  286  ;  restric- 
tions to  intercourse  of  parents-in-law 
and  children- in-law,  288-91  ;  tabued 
relationships,  291  ;  couvade,  291, 
etc.,  379  ;  usages  concerning  sneez- 
ing, 379. 

Cybele,  priests  of,  218. 

Dasent,  Dr.,  his  argument  from  Beast- 
Fables,  10,  365. 

Dead,  names  of,  not  mentioned,  142, 
145. 

Dead,  Bridge  of,  358-63  ;  River  or 
Gulf  of,  362. 

Deaf  and  dumb,  their  mental  condition 
and  education,  17,  65-75  ;  of  them- 
selves utter  words,  71-4 ;  their  lip- 
imitation  of  words,  72. 

Decline  of  culture,  161,  181-8,  375  ; 
Dr.  Von  Martius's  theory  of,  135, 
375  ;  A.  von  Humboldt  on,  187. 


FIRE-DRILL. 

Deluge,  88,  325-32,  337,  348. 

Devil  painted  white,  112  ;  attributes 
of  Fire-god,  etc.,  given  to,  369. 

Diable  Boiteux,  369. 

Digger  Indians,  186. 

Divination,  130. 

Doing,  in  sense  of  practising  magic, 
135. 

Dolls  and  toys,  106-9. 

Dreams  and  phantasms,  argument 
from,  5-10. 

Drift  gravels,  stone  implements  in, 
194-8  ;  Mr.  Prestwieh  on  age  of, 
195  ;  extinct  animals  of,  311-14. 

Drills  for  boring  holes  and  for  fire- 
making,  188,  240-6. 

Drink  =  river,  37. 

Drum,  138. 

Dumb,  becomes  term  for  foreign,  bar- 
barian, stupid,  young,  34,  64. 

Fairings,  etc.,  1. 

Eclipse,  164. 

Klh'gies,  122. 

Eggs,  artificial  hatching  of,  181. 

Egypt  :  hieroglyphics.  96-100  ;  Coptic 

alphabet,  100  ;  decline  in  arts,  1>1  ; 

stone  arrow-heads,  210  ;    stone  em- 

balmer's  knives,  etc.,  217. 
Elephant,  white,  276. 
K.riiian,  on  rukh  and  griffin,  319. 
Esquimaux,  166,  205,  242,  287,  327,etc. 
Evans,   Mr.    J.,   on   wattled    cloth   of 

Swiss  lake-dwellings,  189. 
Evil  eye,  53,  134. 

Father  put  to  bed,  etc.,  on  birth  of 
child,  see  Couvade,  291-305,  379  ; 
parentage  ascribed  only  to,  2U9. 

Fergusson,  Mr.,  on  wooden  forms  in 
architecture,  166. 

Fetish,  135. 

Finns,  stone-boilers,  268. 

Fire,  myths  of  origin  of,  229,  etc., 
254-6. 

Fire;  new,    250-60  ;— Vestal,   250  ;  in 
Peru,  250  ;  in  India,  255  ;  on  1, 
eve,  257  ;   in  Russia,  259  ;  see  aL-o 
Needfire. 

Fire,  not  touched  with  sharp  instru- 
ment, 277. 

Fiie,  races  reported  to  be  destitute  of, 
229-36  ;  Guanches.  229  ;  Isiniidus 
of  Los  Jardines,  231  ;  of  Fakaat'o, 
231  ;  of  the  Ladrones  and  Philip- 
pines, 232  ;  tribe  in  French  Guiana, 
233  ;  Ethiopian  tribes,  234. 

Fire-drill  :  -simple,  238-41,  251-61 ; 
as  carpenter's  brace,  241  ;  thong- 


INDEX. 


38.1 


KTPK-MAKTNG. 

drill,     241,     255  ;    bow-drill,    244 ; 
pump-drill,  244-6. 

Fire -making  :-Tasmanians  and  Aus- 
tralians said  to  have  no  means  of, 
236  ;  methods  of,  in  different  coun- 
tries, 237-61 ;  stick-and-groove,  237 ; 
striking  fire  with  baml<oo,  238  ;  fire- 
drill,  233-46  ;  striking  fire  with  iron 
pyrites,  247,  260  ;  with  stones,  etc., 
248  ;  flint  and  steel,  248  ;  burning- 
lens,  248  ;  burning-mirror,  248-52  ; 
lucifer  matches,  253  ;  wooden  fric- 
tion-apparatus, kept  up  to  modern 
times,  253  ;  evidence  of  early  use  of, 
in  different  countries,  253-61. 

Fire-syringe,  246. 

Flamen  Dialis,  137. 

Flint  and  steel,  248. 

Floating  gardens,  etc.,  171. 

Food  superstitions,  131. 

Footmarks,  in  Mexican  picture-  writings, 
183. 

Footprints,  mythic,  114-6. 

Fork,  eating-,  173-5. 

Fossil  bones,  shells,  etc.,  myths  of  ob- 
servation connected  with,  316-31. 

Fountain  of  Youth,  36-65. 

Fox,  Col.  A.  Lane,  on  boomerangs,  175. 

Fuegians,  162,  247,  200,  263,  etc. 

Gauchos,  241. 

Gesture-language,  14-81 ;  of  deaf-and- 
dumb,  16-33  ;  nature  of,  15,  etc.  ; 
arbitrary  signs,  22  ;  epithets,  24  ; 
absence  of  grammatical  categories, 
24,  62  ;  grammar  and  syntax,  25-82  ; 
g.  1.  of  savage  tribes.  34-40  ;  syntax, 
39  ;  g.  1.  of  Cistercian  monks,  40-2  ; 
the  Pantomime,  42-4  ;  g.  1.  as  an  ac- 
companiment to  speech,  44,  etc.  ; 
common  to  mankind,  54  ;  evidence 
of  mental  similarity,  54  ;  compared 
with  speech,  58-71  ;  its  dualism 
compared  with  that  of  speech,  59-63  ; 
prepositions,  61  ;  theory  that  g.  1. 
was  the  original  utterance  of  man, 
64  ;  for  numerals,  79. 

Gesture-si^ns,  3d,  43-53  ;  translated  in 
language,  37  ;  nodding  and  shaking 
head,  37,  52  ;  kissing  hand,  38  ;  sign 
of  benediction,  38;  beckoning,  etc.,  45, 
50  ;  snapping  fingers,  45  ;  grasping 
anil  shaking  hands,  45-7  ;  crouching, 
bowing,  kneeling,  etc.,  47  ;  gestures 
of  prayer,  48  ;  uncovering  head,  feet, 
and  body,  48-51  ;  rubbing  noses, 
kissing,  blowing,  etc.,  51  ;  signs  of 
contempt,etc.,52;  against  evileye,ii3. 

Giants,  316-25. 


JUPITER   LAPT8. 

Glass,  legend  of  invention  of,  150  ;  8nb. 
stitmed  for  stone  in  making  knive« 
etc.,  219. 

Gold  work  of  Mexico,  206. 

Gourds,  etc.,  plastered  with  clay,  272 

Griffins,  319. 

Gi hiding  and  polishing  stone  imple- 
ments, 197-203,  380. 

Guanchea,  229. 

Gumio,  178. 

Hair,  bewitching  by  locks  of,  etc.,  127- 
y. 

Hammers,  stone,  192-4,  200,  225. 

Hammock,  175. 

Harpocratea,  41. 

Heads,  preserved,  of  New  Zealand,  266. 

Hebrides,  inhabitants  of,  270. 

Heyse,  on  thought  and  speech,  67. 

Horns,  used  to  point  weapons,  etc.. 
221. 

Hot  stones,  baking  with,  261  :  boilin" 
with,  263-70. 

Hottentots,  10-2,  221. 

Humboldt,  A.  v.,  on  connexion  of  Mexi- 
cans with  Asia,  91,  270,  339  ;  on 
human  degeneration,  187  ;  on  Mexi- 
can elephant-like  head,  313. 

Husband,  name  of,  not  mentioned  by 
wife,  141. 

Ichthyophagi,  210. 

Ideas,  association  of,  with  images  and 
words,  106-49. 

Idiots,  use  of  gesture- language  in  edu- 
cation of,  79. 

Idols,  109-12 

Images,  etc.,  106-22. 

Incubi  and  Succubi,  7. 

India,  stone  implements  in,  212  ;  fire* 
making,  239,  255  ;  marriage,  4", 
280,  286. 

Indians  of  N".  America  :  gesture-lan- 
guage, 35-39 ;  picture-writing.  82-91. 

Individuals,  not  held  to  b<»  physically 
separate  by  lower  races,  295. 

Inventors  and  civilizers,  legends  of, 
150-4;  208,  231,  254,  307,  etc. 

Irish,  stone-boilers,  etc.,  270. 

Iron,  meteoric,  used  by  Indians  of  l& 
Plata  and  Esquimaux,  205. 

Irrigation,  decline  in  art  of.  184. 

Island,  monster  mistaken  for,  342. 

Jack  and  the  Beanstalk,  349-61. 
Japan,  stone  implements  in,  211. 
Jews,  their  use  of  stone  knives,  214-19. 
Jonah,  345. 

Jo-hua,  stone  knives  in  tomb  of  214. 
Jupiter  Lapis,  2-6. 

C  0 


386 


INDEX. 


KAFIRS. 

Kafirs,  141,  147,  etc. 

Kamchadals,  270,  239,  265,  277,  327, 

etc. 
Kang-hi,  his  Encyclopaedia,  209,  3 '.7, 

328. 

Kava  or  Ava.  1 80. 
Kettles,   of  bark,   paunch,  hide,   split 

bamboo,  potstone,  etc.,  269-72. 
Khorsabad,  obsidian  flake-knives  under 

temple  of,  211. 
Kings'  and  chiefs'  names  not  mentioned, 

143-5. 

Kissing,  etc.,  51. 
Kjokkenmbddings,    stone   implements 

of,  196-8. 
Knives,  stone  flake-,  195-9,  211. 

Language,  origin  of,  15,  55-8,  62  ;  Chi- 
nese myth  of,  58 ;  stories  of  attempts 
to  discover  o:iginal  1.  by  experiments 
on  children,  79-81  ;  speech  compared 
with  gesture-language,  58-65  ;  pre- 
dicative and  demonstrative  roois  com- 
pared with  two  classes  of  gesture- 
signs,  59-61  ;  concretism,  62  ;  verb- 
roots,  63  ;  syntax,  63  ;  relation  of 
speech  to  thought,  67-74  ;  deaf-and- 
dumb  of  themselves  speak,  71-4  ; 
their  lip-imitation  of  words,  72  ;  lan- 
guage modified  by  superstitions  con- 
cerning words  in  Polynesia,  145, 
Australia  145,  Tasmania  145,  among 
Abipones  146,  Kafirs  147,  Yezidis 
147,  English  and  Americans  148 ; 
evidence  from  language  as  to  progress 
in  culture,  163-6,  256  ;  as  to  Stone 
Age,  213-5. 

Lartet  and  Christy,  on  bone  caves  of 
Perigord,  197. 

Lazarus,  Prof.,  216. 

Letters.     See  Phonetic  Characters. 

Life,  future,  5-10,  296,  354-7. 

Little  Red  Kiding-Hood,  346. 

Livre  des  Sauvages,  88. 

Lubbock,  Sir  J. ,  division  of  Stone  Age, 
194  ;  on  fireless  tribes,  236. 

M'Lennan,  J.  F.,  marriage-laws  of 
lower  races,  279 ;  form  of  capture, 
287. 

Madagascar,  167-9,  225,  240. 

Magia  and  sorcery,  theory  of,  116-39, 
304,  380. 

Malay  stone-implements,  215. 

Malayo-Polynesians,  167,  178,  etc. 

Mammoths  and  other  extinct  animals, 
possible  recollection  of,  311  ;  myths 
derived  from  remains  of,  313-20. 

M °n   his  degeneration  in  size  and  length 


MYTHS. 

of  life,  324  ;  mental  uniformity  o^ 
372-4  ;  primary  condition  of,  379. 

Miin  in  the  Moon,  etc.,  334. 

Man  swallowed  by  Fish,  344-46. 

Map-making.  89. 

Marriage,  prohibition  of,  among  Kin- 
dred. 279,  etc.,  ;  in  Eur»pe,  279  ; 
Asia,  280-2;  Africa,  282;  Australia, 
282  ;  America,  283-6  ;  extended  to 
imaginary  kindred,  288  ;  wife  carried 
off  by  force,  286,  287  ;  crossing  male 
and  female  lines,  v83-8. 

Martins,  Dr.  v.,  his  theory  of  degenera- 
tion, 135,  375. 

Massagetae,  207. 

Metal-working  in  Mexico  and  Peru,  20fi. 

Mexico  ; — picture-writing,  91-7,  312  ; 
calendars,  91,  339  ;  phonetic  charac- 
ters, 92-6  ;  Quetzalcohuatl  and  the 
Toltecs,  151-4  ;  stone  implements, 
191  ;  metal-work,  206  ;  tire  drill, 
240  ;  Humboldt  on  connexion  of 
Mexican  civilization  with  Asia,  91, 
207,  276,  312,  339. 

Mirrors  of  pyrites  and  obsidian,  250,  260. 

Moslems,  their  opinion  on  images,  120. 

Mound-builders  of  Mississippi  Valley, 
205. 

Miiller,  Prof.  Max,  61,  147. 

Myths,  311-71,  378  ;  of  origin  of  lan- 
guage, 58  ;  connected  with  shapes  of 
rocks,  stone  circles,  statues,  113  ;  of 
footprints,  114 ;  of  sympathetic  plants, 
132  ;  of  Qnetzalcohuatl,  151-4  ;  Sun- 
myths,  150-3,  346-52,  364  ;  myths 
relating  to  stone  arrow-heads,  224  ; 
to  dolmens  in  North  Africa,  222  ;  of 
thunderbolt,  223-7  ;  of  Prometheus, 
229,  255  ;  of  origin  of  fire  in  Poly- 
nesia, 231  ;  Chinese,  254  ;  Phoenicia, 
254;  of  monstrous  tribes,  '234  ;  growth 
of,  233  ;  permanence  of,  234  ;  of  Old 
World  transferred  to  New,  249  ;  geo- 
graphical distribution  of,  333-71  ; 
common  nature  and  character  of, 
among  different  races.  333-37  ;  man 
in  the  moon,  etc.,  334  ;  sun  and  moon, 
brother  and  sister,  335  ;  Castor  and 
Pollux  in  Tasmania,  335  ;  transmis- 
sion of,  337,  etc.,  378  ;  derived  from 
Bible  stories,  etc.,  337-9  ;  of  America 
compared  with  those  of  Old  World, 
339-71  ;  World  -  Tortoise,  Tortoise 
Island,  etc.,  340-4  ;  Man  swallowed 
by  fish,  344-6  ;  Sun-Catcher,  346-52; 
Tom  Thumb,  344-6  ;  Little  lied  Kid- 
ing-Hood, 346  ;  .Tack  and  the  Bean- 
stalk, 349-57  :  ascent  to  heaven  l>y 
the  Tree,  350-7  ;  Swan-coat,  355 ; 


INDEX 


387 


MYTHS   OF   OBSERVATION. 

Bridge,  River,  etc.  of  Dead,  358-63  ; 
Fountain  of  Youth,  363-5 ;  Tail- 
fisher,  3(55  -9  ;  Moon  taken  for  cheese, 
366  ;  stumpy-tailed  animals,  366  ; 
Diable  Boiteux,  369  ;  value  of  myths 
as  historical  evidence,  378.  See  also 
Myths  of  Observation,  Beast-Fables 
and  Traditions. 

Myths  of  Observation,  306-32  :— 
petrified  lentils,  315  ;  sun  hissing  in 
sea,  315  ;  rain  of  stones,  316  ;  con- 
nected with  fossil  remains,  316-32  ; 
mammoths,  mastodons,  etc.,  316-23  ; 
rhinoceros  horns,  318-20  ;  grilh'ns, 
318-20  ;  animals  coming  out  of  caves, 
321  ;  creatures  which  die  on  seeing 
daylight,  318,  321  ;  giants,  322-5  ; 
degeneration  of  man's  stature,  324  ; 
bearing  of  fossils  and  remains  of  boats 
on  Deluge-traditions,  325-32  ;  bones 
of  whales  on  high  mountains,  327. 

Nails,  bewitching  by,  128. 

Names :  —  their  association  with  objects, 
124  ;  their  use  in  magic,  etc.,  124-7  ; 
concealed,  125  ;  changed  to  deceive 
evil  spirits,  125  ;  exchanged  in  token 
of  amity,  126  ;  avoidance  of  use  of 
certain  personal  names,  own,  of 
others,  of  husbands,  of  parents-  and 
children-in-law,  of  <  ther  connexions, 
of  kings  and  chiefs,  of  dead,  of 
spirits,  of  superhuman  beings,  139- 
49,  288-91. 

Needfire,  253,  256-61. 

New  Zealanders,  161,  189,  202,  266, 
etc. 

North- American  Indians,  their  picture- 
writing,  82,  91,  calendars,  91  ;  syl- 
laburium  of  Cherokees,  102. 

Numa  Pompilius,  250. 

Numerals,  by  gesture,  79  ;  Roman,  etc., 
104. 

Objective  and  subjective  impressions 
and  connexions  confused,  117-49, 
295,  304,  381. 

Ornamentation  of  urns,  273. 

Ostyaks,  images  of  dead,  109. 

Parentage  from  father,  297. 

Parents-in-law  and  children-in-law,  ob- 
servances concerning,  141-7  ;  restric- 
tions to  intercourse  of,  288-91. 

peru  :_metal-work  of,  206  ;  New  Fire, 
250  ;  Virgins  of  the  Sun  compared 
with  Vestal  Virgins  of  Rome,  251. 

Phonetic  characters,  1)2-105  ;  of  .Mexi- 
cans, 92-7  :  Egyptian  hieroglyphs, 


SPIRITS. 

96-100  ;  of  Chir.ese,  99  ;  of  Central 
America,  98  ;  alphabets  and  sylla- 
baria,  100-5. 

Picture-writing,  etc.,  82-105,  159 ;  of 
North  American  Indians,  Sl-91  ;  of 
Mexicans,  91-7  ;  numerals,  104. 

Plants,  sympathetic,  132. 

Polynesians,  142-5,  161,  173,  237,  265, 
307,  346,  etc. 

Pottery,  174,  179,  264-8  ;  Goguet's 
theory  of  origin  of,  270-4  ;  transition 
vessels,  269-74  :  gourd-shapes,  272 ; 
ornamentation,  273. 

Prometheus,  229,  255. 

Pnris  and  Coroados,  76-8. 

Pygmies,  236. 

Pyrites  striking  fire  with,  248,  260. 

Quaternary  deposits,  194  ;  possible  tra- 
ditions of  animuls  of,  311-14. 
Quet/alc»huatl,  116,  151-4. 
Quipus,  154-8. 

Rabbinical  law  as  to  circumcision,  215. 

I'ainbow,  bridge  or  ladder,  361. 

Rainmakers,  133. 

Rattles,  138. 

R'-indeer-tribes  of  Central  France,  197. 

Reynard,  the  Fox,  11,  365. 

Rice,   traditions   of   introduction    of, 

309-11,  355. 
River  of  Death,  360. 
llonsting  and  broiling  food,  261. 
Rukh,  319. 

Sago,  179. 

Samovar,  165. 

Samson,  347,  352. 

Sanchoniathon,  cosmogony  of,  254. 

Semitic  race,  their  alphabet,  101  ;  stone 
implements,  215-19. 

Shell  heaps,  stone  implements  of,  194, 
198. 

Signatures,  doctrine  of,  122. 

Similarity  in  arts,  customs,  beliefs,  etc., 
in  distant  regions,  arguments  from, 
5,  139,  169,  201-3,  261,  275,  302, 
331,  etc.,  370-2. 

Snce/ing,  customs  relating  t<>.  37'.'. 

Sorcerers:— their  arts,  127-'i'.i  ;  nttlei 
and  drums,  138  ;  curt  by  sucking, 
etc.,  277-9. 

Soul,  future  life  of,  5-10,  206,  35S_  03. 

S.'Uiid  and  colour,  comparison  of,  71. 

SIM  ran  maniige,  286. 

Spindle,  190. 

Spirits  :— of  dead,  affected  through  re- 
mains of  bodies.  123  ;  uaiiu-s  of  «. 
not  mentioned,  143. 


3S8 


INDEX. 


8TEIXTHAL. 

Steinthal,  Prof.,  on  gesture-language, 
14;  on  thought  and  speech,  68. 

Stick-aml-groove,  237. 

Stoue,  omaiiH'iits  of  hard,  made  by  low 
South  American  tribes,  187. 

Stuue  Age,  192-228  ;  unground,  194- 
8,  380  ;  ground,  198-204  ;  evidence 
of,  in  dillVrent  parts  of  the  world, 
204-28:  evidence  of  language  as  to,  21 3. 

Stone-boiling,  263-9,  310. 

Stone  implements.  192-228  ;  late  sur- 
viving, 192  ;  natural  stones  used, 
192  ;  implements  of  Drift,  194-7;  simi- 
lar ones  elsewhere,  196  ;  of  bone  caves, 

197  ;    of  Scandinavian   shell -heaps, 

198  ;  grindingand polishing,  198-202; 
flake-knives,    200  ;    celts,    199-202  ; 
hammers,  200  ;  axes,  200  ;  special  in- 
struments, 200  ;  high-class  celts  in 
Australia,  201 ;   patu-patu,  of  New 
Zealand.  202  ;  general  similarity  of 
stone  implements  of  different  coun- 
tries,  203 ;   countries    found  under 
Stone  Age  conditions,  204  ;  stone  im- 

g'einents  of  N.  and  S.  America,  206  ; 
amchatka,  208  ;  China,  208  ;  Tar- 
tary,  209  ;  lightning-stones,  209  ; 
stone  arrow-heads  of  Tunguz,  209  ;  of 
Egyptians,  210  ;  of  the  field  of  Ma- 
rathon, etc.,  210  ;  stone  implements 
of  Ichthyophagi,  21o  ;  of  W.  ami  X. 
Asia,  211  ;  Japan,  211  ;  Java,  Malay 
Peninsula,  etc,  212;  India,  196, 
212  ;  Europe,  213  ;  Aryans,  2  3  ; 
evidence  of  language  as  to,  213, 
etc.,  ;  use  of  stone  implements  by 
Jews  and  Alnajah,  214-217  ;  used 
forciicumcising,  214-217  ;tbr slaugh- 
tering beasts.  217,  223,  227,  for  in- 
cision of  corpse  to  he  embalmed  in 
Egypt.  2i7  ;  for  extracting  balsam 
of  Judaea,  219  ;  stone  implements  in 
Arahii.  218  ;  Africa,  220-3:  Canary 
Islands.  222  ;  thought  to  be  thunder- 
holts,  223  ;  to  be  natural  stones,  209, 
225 :  used  to  sacrifice  victims  with 
in  Africa,  223  ;  in  Kome,  rJ7. 

Stumpy- tailed  animals,  myths  relating 
to,  365. 

Sugar,  179. 

Sun-mvths,  150-4,  346-53,  364. 

Supernatural  beings,  109  ;  names  of, 
not  mentioned,  143,  147. 

Superstitions,  123-49,  218,  304,  378  ; 
relating  to  thunderbolt,  225  ;  need- 
fire,  256  ;  albino  elephant,  276  ;  seeds 
put  with  gold-dust,  etc.,  276  ;  touch- 
ing fire  with  knife,  etc.,  277  ;  as  to 
god-parents,  304.  See  also  Customs. 


Swan-coat,  355. 
Swiss  lake-dwellers,  189,  193. 
Symbolic  offerings,  121  ;  charms,  181, 
etc. 

Tabu.  130,  141,  etc.,  291. 

Tail-fishing,  etc.,  365-9. 

Tally,  166." 

Tasmanians,  76,  196,  235,  335. 

Tea-urn,  165. 

Teeth,  artificial,  173  ;  stopping  teeth 
with  gold,  173. 

Textile  fabrics,  188-91. 

Thunderbolt,  209,  212,  222,  224-8. 

Toddy,  179. 

Toltecs,  151-4. 

Tom  Thumb,  346-9. 

Tortoise-myth,  313,  341-4. 

Totem,  284. 

Traditions,  306  14  ;  of  inventors  and 
civilizers,  150-4  ;  of  quipu  in  China, 
154,  307  ;  of  Polynesia,  307  ;  Central 
America,  308  ;  in  tropics,  apparently 
belonging  to  high  latitudes,  308  ;  of 
introduction  of  rice,  309  ;  first  ap- 
pearance of  white  men  among  N.  W. 
American  tribe,  310  ;  possible  recol- 
lection of  mammoth,  colossal  tor- 
toise, great  ape,  etc.,  312-4  ;  deluge, 
325-32. 

Tree,  Heaven-,  349-58. 

Tribes  said  to  be  deficient  in  speech, 
75-9  ;  degraded,  184  ;  said  to  have 
no  fire,  or  no  means  of  fire-making, 
229-37. 

Utterance,  not  by  speech  only,  14  ;  its 
relation  to  thought,  68-74. 

Veddahs,  76-8,  239,  291. 

Vei  syllabarium,  102. 

Vessels  : — for  stone-boiling,  263-9, 
310  ;  of  bark,  paunch,  hide,  bamboo, 
etc.,  for  setting  over  fire,  269-71  ;  of 
pot -stone,  270;  pottery,  27i>-4  ; 
gourds,  etc.,  plastered  with  clay,  27'-. 

Vestal  Virgins,  250-2. 

Wattled  cloth,  189. 
Weaving,  179,  189. 
Whately,  Archbishop,  his  theory  of 

civilization,  160-3. 
Wild  fire,  2o4. 
Words,  superstitions  concerning,  124- 

7,  139-49. 
World,    conception    of,    among    lower 

races,  341,  358. 
Writing  see  Picture-writing.  Phonr-tic 

characters ;  use  of,  in  magic,  etc.,  liiii. 


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